Review of Ballad of a Soldier

SPOILER ALERT It's always interesting for me to come across a world war two movie that I have not seen, and I can appreciate watching one from a foreign country even more. This is my fifth or sixth eastern European made war film dating from Battleship Potemkin, there just don't seem to be many available to the American market, a couple of those that I saw (overseas on foreign TV not American), were way over the top comic book war movies, which I do not place this movie in. The Russian movies all seem to tug at the heart strings and it's good, it adds a human factor, but they usually over do it. With this one I was really expecting a very dramatic ending, I wont say it was a let down as I had lost a lot of interest in the film by then, but to see all these 10 star reviews does seem a little overrated. If you read who the reviewers are and where they live it gives you a better clue on who would totally love this film, I have to think they are travelers, it's all good, but I'm just saying; this is not a movie I'm going to tell everyone I know to go see right away, it was good, but not great. Then again, I'm not a traveler (I joined the military to help protect the USA from Soviet aggressions in the 1980's) so take that into account. If I can make a critical thought without offending comrade, it reminded me of the movie's Planes Trains and Automobiles crossed with The Clock (Judy Garland and Robert Walker), except it was in Russian and the ending is patriotically a sad one (although the ending is not shown, just a narrative like in the movie Bataan). 6 of 10 for some tender moments and a cool battle scene in the beginning, it's no Aleksandr Nevskiy and why it's ranked higher at IMDb.com is because it's obscure and not widely seen.