While the story is about hockey on the surface, it's sure to be equally interesting to non-sports fans.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Feb 1, 2021

Gabe Polsky's film took an age to get going, which made it run far longer than the story merited. As for that story, there was too much of everything, from strippers on the ice at half-time to bears serving drinks.

| Dec 18, 2020

In some ways I found the grainy footage of Russian violence... more comforting than the intense self-importance and latent smiling aggression of the Americans.

| Dec 14, 2020

Beyond a montage of Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Bush Sr and Clinton, dates and details are fairly scant in this riotous Storyville documentary, in which horror and humour share top billing.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 11, 2020

Polsky packs a lot into the film's slim 80-minute running time. It's dense but never overwhelming, presenting facts and anecdotes in a coherent, intuitive, supremely entertaining fashion.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 6, 2020

The resulting movie is both wildly entertaining, filled with boozy tales of backroom deals, and a perfect primer for those struggling to understand the Russia of today.

| Aug 28, 2020

...shifts from a comedic, so-crazy-it-has-to-be-true setup into a story unnerving and intensely unsettling.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2020

If you're a hockey fan, particularly this era in the '90s, you might enjoy Red Penguins.

| Aug 19, 2020

By leaving in awkward pauses and gaffes... the interview footage fully fleshes out characters that would have been relegated to talking heads in lesser hands.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Aug 19, 2020

The film is chock full of colorful, larger-than-life figures on both sides of the East-West divide, and it's fun to guess what actors would play which characters in a Hollywood movie version of the same story.

| Aug 19, 2020

You couldn't write characters this vibrant, hilarious, sinister, or eccentric, and if you tried, people would accuse you of resorting to stereotypes.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 16, 2020

The film has a crescendo of forces, incl. American fear, Russian secrecy & of course Vladimir Putin. Has beauty in its exposure of human agendas & indecency. Follow the money.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 15, 2020

Even for those who don't know a slash from a slap shot, Red Penguins works as a fish-out-of-water tale, a stark history lesson, and a rousing sports epic. On anyone's ice, that's a nifty hat trick.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 15, 2020

Red Penguins is one of the more unique documentaries that people will see about behind-the-scenes machinations for a sports team. People certainly won't look at Russian hockey in the same way again after seeing this movie.

| Aug 15, 2020

Polsky's storytelling skills give audiences high entertainment value, and he also gives us an education about Russian culture.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 13, 2020

Rollicking, absurd, outrageous, and ominous.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 12, 2020

The incompatibility of Russian and American cultures-at least during this precarious period-is the backdrop for Red Penguins' raucous portrait of DIY capitalism...

| Aug 11, 2020

A darkly funny mashup between a sports documentary and a gangster drama, Red Penguins is an incredibly entertaining film that also delves into serious cultural issues.

| Aug 11, 2020

...thanks to this superb film from director Polsky, we now have the definitive record of one of the craziest chapters in the history of ice hockey.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 11, 2020

A topsy-turvy Petri dish of unruliness in which the bad guys far outnumber the good, a place were being put on ice, has more than just one meaning.

| Original Score: B+ | Aug 9, 2020