This film covers one of the least-written-about major battles of World War 2, the Rzhev Meatgrinder, which was a series of battles fought west of Moscow 1941-1943. The Russians threw wave after wave at the Germans but, in the end, it was basically all for nothing as the German positions were much too strong. The Rzhev salient only ended when the Germans retreated in order to shorten their lines due to manpower shortages after their disastrous defeat at Stalingrad.

Here, we get a remarkably balanced portrayal of the average Russian infantryman's experience and fighting abilities during the war. Surprisingly, this film pulls no punches in depicting the bureaucratic incompetence of the Soviet Union at the time, with Generals making bad decisions and the dead weight incubus effect that ideologue political officers had on the other soldiers. Nicely we do get to experience one political officer have a change of heart from his front line experience, and lots of little bits of humanity scattered throughout.

Coming off the Fyodor Bondarchuk STALINGRAD movie a few years ago, I expected a lot of the same over-reliance on CGI and MTV style editing, but thankfully it's all kept to an absolute minimum and largely bunched up into the opening action scene. The rest of the film actually features a fairly deliberate pace and some of the best night time cinematography I have seen in years. The battle scenes mostly don't disappoint in depicting the enemy as cunning, the chances of victory low, and the stakes high. There are a few instances of people unrealistically mowing down hoards of advancing soldiers with a single machine gun but it's nothing we haven't seen before.

Try and find a subtitled version of this film if you can as the English dubbing is absolutely horrendous. None of the voices have any emotional authenticity in them at all, even during the screams of pain and excitement. This film isn't perfect, but I'd put it nearly as on-par of an Eastern Front Adventure as your average Finnish war movie from 20-30 years ago.

At last a real good Russian war movie, about the Great Patriotic War, a subject rarely close to real, actual events. There are batches of garbage propaganda stuff, where the Germans are always shown as idiots - idiots who provoked more than 25 millions deaths among the Russian population.....Here, the focus is on the Political Commisars, the Politrouks, who killed anyone who hesitated to fight. This point of view was rarely spoken in Russian movies. In this film, the enemy is maybe more them than the Germans. Political commissars and their bloodthirsty decisions, who ordered the deaths of thousands of soldiers only to take a simple hill. For Staline and his gang, the human life of their own fellows was nothing. They were more than Germans; one Nazi for one hundred Russians. An unbalanced fight. I have always found weird and not logical that people defending their life, freedom and homeland - the Russians - needed Political commissars to prevent them to desert.....The Nazis did not in Russia; maybe for obvious reasosn though. Where a deserter would have been, among the "Untermenschen", slavic "under men'; they were safer in the middle of their own "kameraden'...So, to summarize, I highly recommend this feature.

The opening battle scene was good but suffered from some war movie clichés, like having a guy drag another to safety only to find that half his body is gone. Also, they have those familiar stock characters, the scavenger, the harsh Commissar, and the heroic, square jawed commander. But as the movie progresses, the actors settle into their roles well. The commander is especially likable.

The movie is well structured. After the opening battle there is a tense pause before the German counter-attack. This gives the actors time to show us the state or the Red Army in 1942. We see the conflict between the army and the Commissars. We see the army's dedication to defeating the invaders despite no matter the situation. While all war movies glam up battle scenes, it was less so here than a typical American production.

The behavior of the Commissars is portrayed negatively but we do hear enough dialogue to understand why some of them identify so strongly with the state. This is not justifying them, just letting you see them as humans who took a wrong turn. Many times, the Commissars have a logical (but not necessarily correct) reason for a decision but their heavy handedness creates animosity. After a tense conversation, a Commissar refuses to send help to the unit that just took a position, he finally blurts out, 'whatever we send them will be a total loss and who knows what will happen when the Germans attack here next'. The Commissar assumes the officer he was arguing with is acting on emotion but that does not make his decision right. He could be underestimating the army's ability to win when given resources at critical times. I thought this interplay was well done but you have to look for it, I consider this good writing.

I liked the use of church imagery, such as the damaged church, the basement, and the walls decorated with icons. This was in the background throughout the movie. Religious themes can feel forced but here it felt natural. Even the Commissars, famous for their atheism, chose to ignore its presence rather than fight it. You could see this going through their minds with one darting glance at these images. The Church belonged there the Germans did not. When a German emerged from an Orthodox church at night with a flame thrower, it was chilling. It was as if they were assaulting the essence of the town.

The Germans were a better foil here than in an American movie. In U. S. movies they are portrayed as evil but incompetent. This detracts from their seriousness. Here they are deadly and their presence is like a dark cloud.

Except for a few common war movie tropes, this was a very good production.