We follow the journey of two Russian soldiers on their way to Chechnya where a Russian convoy has been ambushed. They take a young Chechen captive to show them the way.
The film was very confusing at first, especially if (like me) you have not done any prior research on the global trope of the film. But it ultimately does get to a point where you understand what is happening and from that point on the action just stales.
It is a war film with not a single battle scene, for the most part of the film we are just watching the two Russian soldiers and their prisoner trekking through the forrest. It would not have been a problem if the character development made up for the lack of action but it did not. I expected a lot more development but all three of the characters just stayed pretty much the same throughout the entirety of the film. Although we do see them getting more used to being with each other, the movie ends right at the beginning of that "development". I would not go as far as to say that the film should have been extended to actually let enough time for relationship and character development because with how passive it was the film already felt like it was dragging on.
Ultimately it was not a bad movie, it was just lacking basically any kind of action and also pretty pointless as the characters did not make any impact and right from the start of their "rescue mission" you could feel that they were never going to accomplish anything. The way they never gave up even though they were clearly set on a game they could not win was very confusing. But it was different from the usual war film and some of the shots were remarkably great.
The film was very confusing at first, especially if (like me) you have not done any prior research on the global trope of the film. But it ultimately does get to a point where you understand what is happening and from that point on the action just stales.
It is a war film with not a single battle scene, for the most part of the film we are just watching the two Russian soldiers and their prisoner trekking through the forrest. It would not have been a problem if the character development made up for the lack of action but it did not. I expected a lot more development but all three of the characters just stayed pretty much the same throughout the entirety of the film. Although we do see them getting more used to being with each other, the movie ends right at the beginning of that "development". I would not go as far as to say that the film should have been extended to actually let enough time for relationship and character development because with how passive it was the film already felt like it was dragging on.
Ultimately it was not a bad movie, it was just lacking basically any kind of action and also pretty pointless as the characters did not make any impact and right from the start of their "rescue mission" you could feel that they were never going to accomplish anything. The way they never gave up even though they were clearly set on a game they could not win was very confusing. But it was different from the usual war film and some of the shots were remarkably great.