After seeing the Russian film 9 ROTA set during the Soviet -Afghan conflict I was struck how similar it was to American war films which disappointed me since I was expecting something with a much more idiosyncratic style . I had better hopes for ZVEZDA since it is set during the second world war . The Soviet Union lost a grand total of 30 million citizens during the conflict . Putting it in to perspective both Britain and the USA lost around 350,000 war dead each . No Soiet family was left untouched and many Soviets died in the most cruel way possible . There's a famous Soviet film COME AND SEE which gives a small taste of the brutality of the Eastern front so I looked forward to this film with anticipation . Sadly like 9 ROTA I was disappointed with it for exactly the same reason - it seems more like a Hollywood movie than a Russian one
The plot is simple . A team of reconnaissance scouts is sent behind Nazi lines to pick up information . It's obvious what director Nicolai Lebedev and the screenwriters are going to do with the story - they're going to make a suspenseful war drama where every five minutes the unit are in mortal danger of being caught . Two previous units on the same mission have disappeared and the unit come across the tortured bodies of one of their predecessors . This lets even the most uneducated audience members know that
1 ) The mission is dangerous
2 ) If they're caught they won't face a simple death of a bullet - they'll be skinned alive
Unfortunately the more danger the unit face the more unlikely things become . For example two of the scouts climb aboard a German truck . All of a sudden Germans appear and drive the trucks off towards the German base . Two Germans sit in the back of the truck and suddenly become suspicious so pull out their pistols as they prepare to search he back . Then out of nowhere a Soviet air raid takes place allowing our scout heroes to make good their escape . Every time it looks like the unit are going to be caught something always happens that allows the unit to escape regardless of how unlikely it is . This scene also interferes with the time frame since the truck must have traveled several miles but the surviving scout manages to walk back to his unit in what seems a few minutes
As far as I can remember the year isn't mentioned on screen but since the Red Army are on the frontier of the Western Soviet Union then it can only be happening in 1944 . This leads to a serious inaccuracy in the dialogue where the unit find out the Nazis are going to launch a counter-offensive with " 40,000 men and 2,000 tanks " What the Nazis had 2,000 tanks to spare in the Summer of 1944 ? I knew the biggest tank battle in history took place between the Wermacht and Red Army the previous year at Kursk where the Nazis had a grand total of 2,700 tanks . Certainly there's no way they could muster that amount of tanks in the Summer of 1944 so I take it the subtitles are wrong and should have read 200 . Even so this wouldn't have been enough to launch a counter-offensive against the Soviets who had an army of 1,500,000 ready to launch Operation Bagaration
Things like this spoil the movie but it's not really a film that concerns itself with portraying history accurately otherwise we wouldn't be seeing scenes with a Soviet scout feeling sorry for the unit executing Nazi prisoners or references to " The liberation of Poland " . Its sole function is to keep the audience on tenterhooks as to the individual fate of the unit members . In this it succeeds to a large degree but one had hoped to have seen a much more " Soviet " type of film rather than a Russian film trying to emulate Hollywood
The plot is simple . A team of reconnaissance scouts is sent behind Nazi lines to pick up information . It's obvious what director Nicolai Lebedev and the screenwriters are going to do with the story - they're going to make a suspenseful war drama where every five minutes the unit are in mortal danger of being caught . Two previous units on the same mission have disappeared and the unit come across the tortured bodies of one of their predecessors . This lets even the most uneducated audience members know that
1 ) The mission is dangerous
2 ) If they're caught they won't face a simple death of a bullet - they'll be skinned alive
Unfortunately the more danger the unit face the more unlikely things become . For example two of the scouts climb aboard a German truck . All of a sudden Germans appear and drive the trucks off towards the German base . Two Germans sit in the back of the truck and suddenly become suspicious so pull out their pistols as they prepare to search he back . Then out of nowhere a Soviet air raid takes place allowing our scout heroes to make good their escape . Every time it looks like the unit are going to be caught something always happens that allows the unit to escape regardless of how unlikely it is . This scene also interferes with the time frame since the truck must have traveled several miles but the surviving scout manages to walk back to his unit in what seems a few minutes
As far as I can remember the year isn't mentioned on screen but since the Red Army are on the frontier of the Western Soviet Union then it can only be happening in 1944 . This leads to a serious inaccuracy in the dialogue where the unit find out the Nazis are going to launch a counter-offensive with " 40,000 men and 2,000 tanks " What the Nazis had 2,000 tanks to spare in the Summer of 1944 ? I knew the biggest tank battle in history took place between the Wermacht and Red Army the previous year at Kursk where the Nazis had a grand total of 2,700 tanks . Certainly there's no way they could muster that amount of tanks in the Summer of 1944 so I take it the subtitles are wrong and should have read 200 . Even so this wouldn't have been enough to launch a counter-offensive against the Soviets who had an army of 1,500,000 ready to launch Operation Bagaration
Things like this spoil the movie but it's not really a film that concerns itself with portraying history accurately otherwise we wouldn't be seeing scenes with a Soviet scout feeling sorry for the unit executing Nazi prisoners or references to " The liberation of Poland " . Its sole function is to keep the audience on tenterhooks as to the individual fate of the unit members . In this it succeeds to a large degree but one had hoped to have seen a much more " Soviet " type of film rather than a Russian film trying to emulate Hollywood