Review of Panfilov's 28 Men

However, there is abundantly doubt within some audience that the heroic story of the Panfilov Division's Twenty-Eight Guardsmen defending Moscow from Nazi troops was even true. According to official Soviet history, they were all killed in action on 16 November 1941, after destroying 18 German tanks and stopping the enemy attack. Yet, some historians believe this story was all fabrication for propaganda reasons, in order to boost morale and patriotism within the Soviet people during wartime. They point out the many inaccuracy inconsistencies within the story such as the original reporter Vasily Koroteev not mentioning a date or place of the battle, nor the exact size of the group defending the grounds. To add onto this confusement, within German and Soviet operational documents, no mention of losses were ever marked during that period of supposed time. Plus, senior commanders within the Red Army could not identify the Commissars there nor figure out what company, the soldiers were from. In spite of that, later publications add to the story, stating out that 28 men fought there and they were from the 4th company rather than the 5th as first believe without confirming the information. It wasn't until 1948 after the Great Patriotic War that some real knowledge about them, started to spill out. One of those was the fact that the men weren't all killed in the battle. Five of them were forced to retreat along with the other members of the Red Army after three days of fighting in the outskirts of Moscow with another one voluntarily surrendering to German's troops. It wasn't until December 1941 that the Red Army were able to drive the German's back. Even with that knowledge, the weather conditions and supply lines thinning is the true reason why the Wehrmacht's advancing slow down gradually into a standstill. This was awful news for the Soviet government whom invested great amount of money on memorials including five 12-meter tall statues near the site of the battle and the Twenty-Eight Guardsmen Park in Alma Ata. So those findings were kept secret by the Stalinists and later, the stagnation era of the Ministry of Culture until the declassified within the end of the Cold War. After all, they want to keep those soldier's image pure, in order to recruit people on the bases to help defend the country on a nationalist level rather than pushing extreme cultural revolutions communism down people's throats after the reform of the 1960s. Despite that, even today in modern day contemporary Russia believing, otherwise of that Twenty-Eight Guardsmen not being national heroes can led you into hot water. After all, the news is still control by the Ministry of Culture and they can dictate what can and cannot be said. Because of that, from an outsider perspective, I don't believe this movie produced by Gaijin Entertainment game development company is as accurate as it could had been. Apart from its crowdfunding budget, the motion picture was also produced with backing from the culture ministries of Russia and Kazakhstan, so you can tell what parts of the story will be omitted or not explore too much. One such example is not reporting too much of the incompetence within the Red Army. They never talk about the many failures, they went through, before the battle nor how many soldiers were shot by their own hands. Regardless, the foreign film does have some cleverly nods with the aged old newspapers. However this motion picture doesn't dig too deep into it. As for the acting. It was fine. I like how the movie has humor & charm. It makes the soldiers here seem like real-life people rather than lifeless pegs in the propaganda machines. Seeing ethnicities along them was also pretty neat. However, even with that, I really couldn't them tell apart individually. There were too many characters for this 105 minute film. Because of that, I couldn't really get too invested in their struggles. As for the villains, the German troops were a little too faceless for my taste as well. I really couldn't tell the different between them. Still, even with the lack of blood and gore, the action scenes were very compelling. The stunt work was outstanding. As for the effects, the high detailed model work combined with outdoor footage, really stood out. Everything look very realistic. I like how little CGI, they used. As for the music, composer Mikhail Kostylev did a hell of a job. It really does sound epic and emotional. In the end, while this movie directed and written by Andrey Shalopa does seem somewhat over jingoism, agitprop & anti perestroika at times. It's still worth checking out. No vodka drinking needed.