Two thirds of the film is about tanks in WW2, and that is quite all right. It is not perfect because of the slow rythm imparted to the story and the inevitable Russian depressing tone and long silences so often depicted by Russian cinema.
Perhaps the action was slow because there was no more meat to add to the story: maybe the conflict between the metaphysical tank and the rest would only provide substance for a few minutes. Maybe the writers could not think of any more ways, any more encounters to show the uncanny invulnerability of the White Tiger... while at the same time not killing the Russian tankist hero in the meantime.
So the war section of the movie was slow and short, but it was acceptable and watchable.
And now disaster happens. Perhaps the writers met and wondered "what could we add now to stretch the film to a normal length?" In the absence of any sensible idea, then the writers made the action jump to "we won", and dedicated several minutes to show an interesting recreation of the surrender by Admiral Jodl, which, I said, is interesting to watch but has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the White Tiger. To reach new levels of irrelevancy, even an intimate but trivial dinner among the three German top brasses is shown. Finally, to go to sublime hights of digression, the film ends with an imaginary and impossible conversation of Hitler (who was dead by the time) with a hidden interviewer, where Hitler shifts the blame on the Europeans(!). Anything goes; the screenwriters were evidently desperate to streeeeech the movie at any cost and to insert anything impressive to lift up a flat ending.
As I said, you may watch it, but be warned that it is snobbish and, at the same time, amateurish.
Perhaps the action was slow because there was no more meat to add to the story: maybe the conflict between the metaphysical tank and the rest would only provide substance for a few minutes. Maybe the writers could not think of any more ways, any more encounters to show the uncanny invulnerability of the White Tiger... while at the same time not killing the Russian tankist hero in the meantime.
So the war section of the movie was slow and short, but it was acceptable and watchable.
And now disaster happens. Perhaps the writers met and wondered "what could we add now to stretch the film to a normal length?" In the absence of any sensible idea, then the writers made the action jump to "we won", and dedicated several minutes to show an interesting recreation of the surrender by Admiral Jodl, which, I said, is interesting to watch but has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the White Tiger. To reach new levels of irrelevancy, even an intimate but trivial dinner among the three German top brasses is shown. Finally, to go to sublime hights of digression, the film ends with an imaginary and impossible conversation of Hitler (who was dead by the time) with a hidden interviewer, where Hitler shifts the blame on the Europeans(!). Anything goes; the screenwriters were evidently desperate to streeeeech the movie at any cost and to insert anything impressive to lift up a flat ending.
As I said, you may watch it, but be warned that it is snobbish and, at the same time, amateurish.