bff, i don't even know where to start... all in all, i didn't like it at all. the most annoying thing for me was that the Russians/Germans were "demonized" in the movie. Especially the Russian colonel. and every time the German general spoke, he tried to imitate Hitler. he might have been a good speaker in real life, but this also went to far - it's just ugly stereotyping. i also didn't like the main characters, they didn't connect very well with the audience. they seemed as if they were 5 years old sometimes... they took their decisions too simply, their dialogs most of the time pointless. also the age of actors should have been younger, most of them looked like they were 40-50. i'm sure most of the guys, who picked up the rifles, were younger(pupils, students etc) and what's up with the love stories? i know it might seem as a good idea to bring love stuff in the into war movies, but then show me some convincing love at least. it's a movie, it needs words! it's not a book where you can read your protagonist's thoughts. and why did Riga seem like a village all the time? also the story in the first 1,5h was quite pointless. why was it there anyway? if it wanted to bring the audience closer to the average Latvian person, then i they didn't do a very good job at it. also i didn't like the "unauthentic" history. the boats, martins-ulmanis vodka drinking together, the artillery etc... well at least there were some points in the movie that i didn't feel like i wanted to run out of the cinema. for instance i liked how the final battle was made and one could see that there was a lot of effort in it, also in the bombing of Riga. but attacking the German cannons with 4 guys(1 of them was an alcoholic, the other one a fireman and one guy was serving in the army earlier in the artillery)? it's just too absurd... what if the Germans accidentally had about 30 guys there at the time? then it would have been kaka for them... and also what was up with the Indiana Jones style fist-fight in the end? can you get any more cliché than that!?(not the mention the hundreds of other of clichés in the movie, like accidentally hitting a German armored vehicle with the first shot without any aiming) but again - in enjoyed the final attack in the movie. it was something that i was waiting a lot in after these horrible non-stop dialogs and sometimes bad montage. the costumes were great, everything seemed authentic for some time :) also the scenes about Riga were well done. i've visited cine ville once and i also really liked how they actually used this small territory so well. but this type of movie might have worked 70-80 years ago in Latvia, but now it just seems pathetic, it seems like a mindless propaganda from the Nazis. even with this kind of money you can always make better movies... we have a lot to learn in the baltics about movies(especially about war movies)
Review of Rigas sargi
