Not Very Bright

This film is about a fight to the death between, on the one side, an evil, totalitarian, murderous, politically and morally bankrupt regime that killed millions of its own people and plunged Europe into misery and, on the other side, an evil, totalitarian, murderous, politically and morally bankrupt regime that killed millions of its own people and plunged Europe into misery.

People forget that between Dunkirk and D-Day, the only soldiers fighting the Nazis on mainland Europe in any meaningful way were the Russians. Their actions should never be forgotten.

People also forget that the Russians invaded Poland at the start of the war in order to wipe it off the map and share it with the Nazis. Their actions should never be forgotten.

I don't doubt that the original short story was exciting and moving; but this film was cliched and disappointing.

Not all Germans were drunken, incompetent, cowardly, baby-bayonetting monsters, and not all Russians were pure-spirited saintly fighters for the good of mankind, although this film would have you believe otherwise.

It's as if the Cold War never ended, the KGB never released their files and the Russian version of the Great Patriotic War is the definitive account.

Maybe Russian movie culture demands that their films have an overly sentimental angle, but this film struck me as mawkish.

The characters included the standard handsome young officer, the gruff veteran sergeant with a heart of gold, the wily scrounger, the innocent (doomed) youth and the oddball outsider. And don't get me started on the love interest.

A missed opportunity. This could have been a great war film. Instead it looks like a Soviet-era 'educational' propaganda film.

At least I won't get locked up in a mental hospital or sent to a Gulag for writing this.