August 8 (2012) User Reviews

Decent Russian Propaganda War Movie

[bjoleniacz-1 · 6/10 · 29 May 2015]

I haven't seen many Russian movies, so I don't have the background of some of the other reviewers. But I found the political propaganda element of this movie tiresome. The Wikipedia article about the Russo-Georgian War of 2008 states that the shelling was started by the Russian-backed, South Ossetian separatists, and that the ethnic cleansing during the war was also done by South Ossetians as opposed to Georgians. As I watched the film, I got tired of seeing Georgian soldiers without faces- wearing black face masks and goggles to remove the human element. All the Russian soldiers had their faces uncovered throughout the movie, and showed all the different emotional shades of their unwavering bravery, hulk-like strength, and a deep compassion for children, puppies, and hot women.

I think the take-away from this movie was supposed to be something like "Outnumbered and with the odds stacked against them, the Russians somehow managed to pull out a victory from the Russo-Georgian war, which they were forced to intervene in because of a looming humanitarian crisis and the inhumane brutality of the Georgian military." While this message was entertaining at first, by the end it was just plain irritating. I enjoy subtlety. The more overt the propaganda element got, the more angry I was at Russia by the end of the film, for lying to me and for being a bully with a massive modern military that invades other countries, annexes them, and then lies to everyone involved with such blatant lies that it leaves you utterly bewildered as to what to do about the gross injustice of it all.

One of the things about American propaganda films, such as "Lone Survivor," is that it at least ATTEMPTS to tell the truth from both sides of the coin. There is no way America could get away politically with its wars if the movies didn't tell the truth about them to assuage our conscience (c.f. "Green Zone"). Apparently Russia not only wages unjust wars, but its movies about them are just plain lies.

I gave this 3-star humanitarian travesty of a film 6 stars for the special effects. The combat scenes are believable and entertaining. Seeing the Russian military in action makes me glad we're not at war with them.

Almost Fell Asleep Watching This Movie In the Final half

[WarMovieCollector · 5/10 · 4 June 2022]

Movie is about the 2008 August War or Russo-Georgian War. The war action sequence were okay but the story sequences towards the end felt very draggy and long winded. Just get to the story already! Jeez.

Fast-paced and thrilling with loads of incredible action!

[paulclaassen · 7/10 · 6 August 2023]

Don't be fooled by many movie posters featuring giant robots into believing the film is about giants, or giant robots. It's not. Well, partly, I guess.

Tyoma is a young boy who likes playing video games. He often lives in a fantasy world envisioning giants and robots. The film itself is realistic, though, and not fantasy or about super-heroes. Kseniya is a single mother, but still has contact with Tyoma's father, Zaur. Wanting to take a vacation with her new boyfriend, Yegor, Kseniya agrees when Zaur asks for Tyoma to come live with him for a while in the village of Sidamonta in South Ossetia.

Shortly after Tyoma arrives in Sidamonta, news breaks of a war and Sidamonta becoming a conflict zone, and Kseniya desperately wants Tyoma sent back home. When Zaur refuses, she decides to journey to Sidamonta herself. The bus trip to Tskhinvali was incredible! I don't want to ruin the movie if you haven't seen it, so I won't go into detail, but it was stunning.

The rest of the movie sees Kseniya trying to get to her son, while war comes closer to home. 'August Eighth' is an incredible film with amazing visuals, beautiful cinematography, and jaw-dropping action sequences. It is fast-paced and thrilling and there literally never is a dull moment. Svetlana Ivanova did a great job as Kseniya.

The final act might not be believable, but hell, it certainly was entertaining! 'August Eighth' is well worth seeing, if you don't mind subtitles. This is definitely among my favourite Russian films.

What was that?

[repus · 3/10 · 20 March 2012]

This movie is supposed to be a patriotic movie about the events happened in August 2008. First of all, it is totally unclear to me, why a Russian movie was shot in a Hollywood blockbuster style. Russian cinema is able of producing its own solid motion pictures without copying foreign movies. Secondly, as seen from the first scene of the movie, there were people able of making good computer graphics involved in production. A young boy imagines a robot fighting forces of evil. The total disappointment is that later in the movie these computerized characters appear so often, that the movie genre slowly deviates from drama and military to family. Many times at the end of the movie I wished that finally monsters disappeared and I could understand what was really going on. From my point of view, it was absolutely unnecessary to include that much computer graphics, it just takes attention away. Thirdly, some events are shown in a very impressive way, but their plausibility is low. Why would Georgians use very expensive missiles to shoot single targets like a bus, a truck, or even people tracking them using cellular phone signal (is that even possible?). Georgian armed forces can't afford that. Before Americans made some investments in the armed forces, Georgia had pretty much what was left from the times when Georgia was a part of the USSR. The scene with the bus splitting into halves could make some movies like "Final destination" look pale, but, again, it looks so unreal! An actor named Vladimir Vdovichenkov played the president. He is a nice actor, with many roles in action movies, but he wasn't the president of the Russian Federation back in 2008! Lots of movies star actors resembling American presidents, why couldn't the same be done in this movie? Fourthly, the boys behaviour needs some medical attention. Frightened, stressed, he doesn't call mom for help, as a normal kid would do. Only when his mother pretends to be a robot (and he pretends to be "Kosmoboy"), he agrees to communicate using MMS messages on the cellular phone. There are some very solid and dynamic combat episodes withing the movie, nicely shot. But that's about it. Overall, this is a very light and not serious movie with annoyingly too much emphasis on computer graphics. I think the director intended for movie watchers to empathize the characters, but the actors play is lame, so I felt nothing. If you want to see a good movie about the 5-day war in August of 2008th, a movie that creates a proper atmosphere, watch Olympius Inferno.

A Russian garbage parody of Hollywood movies.

[skywalker_2003 · 1/10 · 25 February 2020]

A parody of "Transformers" and "Black Hawk Down" and some other movies with stupid story and just for propaganda. They know that everybody in world hates Russia. then make them a cheap propaganda. do not waste time and money for that garbage.

The movie is good at making you feel

[Vladimir-14 · 9/10 · 15 March 2012]

Of course this movie is a propaganda, but a very good one. That's how propaganda movies should be made! The movie is not about the message that is shouted in your face, but rather about how it makes you feel - at the right time, for the right reason, with the right character. I liked pretty much everything about this movie - the script, the dialogs, character development, action scenes. I've read some concerns about main girl character who's acting did not seem to be convincing early in the movie, but I think it was done on purpose, as a contrast, to show that behind urban glamour still hides Russian Woman that was praised in the world art and literature. Thus dedication of the movie to the mothers. Bottom line is: at last we see some nice action drama coming from Russia that we would not be ashamed of. Highly recommend.

I was disappointed

[lgorgadze · 1/10 · 29 August 2021]

I was waiting movie showing both side of war was existed to watch,but it was not worth it. It was hollywood style film,Had cgi. But main scenes was lost, actors were good but it was terrible writing. I lost 2 hour of my life. Would not recommend.

More Than a Movie in Every Way!

[georgi-gfl · 10/10 · 22 February 2014]

I am not here to judge or criticize, nobody paying me for that. I am here just to say that this movie is about a real life. This movie captures in itself more than I could ever expect from a Russian movie. Its about war, its about care, its about love.

Nothing is perfect in this world including this movie. The script could be better, the cast could be better, the story could be better, the actor performance could be better, BUT. One...... big...... BUT!

The inner fight in a heart of the soldier between responsibilities, duties and care for girl he doesn't know ; the sacrifice of one girl facing the demon of war in name of life ; the love in the eyes of the soldier; This cannon be any better!

Please watch it!

I've almost said "wow"

[CasualView · 8/10 · 23 May 2012]

Frankly: current state of Russian cinema seems fairly low, you have to be real "patriot" to find any jokes in todays' Russian comedies or any fun in action movies (IMHO).

The bigger was surprise from "August 8th" - it got my 8/10 just for being able to watch it till closing credits and don't die from boredom. Bravo! I would even suppose that this movie would be suitable for international auditory, at least it's much more entertaining than any direct-to-video Seagal/VanDamme/Lundgren "product".

OK, Russian actors and script-writers still need to strive to reach any level of realism in dialogs which are are too long and non-convincing here and there, scene of "orgasm in elevator" bravely stolen from Harry & Sally (well, actually it's tribute, heroine has it on DVD), but mechanical, F/X and battle parts of the movie are almost perfect.

Frankly, I cannot even recall any recent movie where realism of the field battle was close enough to August 8th. "Battle Los Angeles" is probably being closest. Director is definitely big fan of hardware, almost 50 consecutive seconds of the movie we can see how a bus is being torn in pieces, including demonstration of all it's mechanical "intestines", really rare episode of this kind. For soldiers CRAWLING (not running) in houses, less than heroic (i.e. real world) deaths on both conflicting sides - for all this my big thanks to director and his military consultants.

Last but not least is that you can mark battle scenes as "based on real events" - unfortunately this sign today is often attached to movies with almost no ties to reality. Here, on the contrary, almost all battle episodes of the movie are based on actual events, including "big ambush" on one of convoys, "live shield" by tank without ammo and many others.

Watching those episodes is highly recommended even if you get a copy of this movie without dubbing, consider it "Black Hawk Down" in miniature.

solid action - war through the eyes of a child and a woman

[rockabye-1-173689 · 10/10 · 23 February 2012]

The plot tells a story of young Muscovite Ksenia who sends her son to Caucasus to be with his father, her Ossetian ex-husband. Suddenly the war breaks out in the region, and Ksenia has to fly down there to rescue her child.

Fayziev said that his heroine isn't suited for anything but mundane household dramas. Yet she has to go through the war experience and can't let herself get tired, refuse or complain, because she doesn't have a choice.

The girl is annoying in the beginning, a bad mom in a miniskirt who cares only about her boyfriend. Then the character develops, she grows to be a decent mother who even understands how to cope with a breakdown of her son, who starts to hide from war in a world of imaginary robots. The film reminded me of Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" because of the kid's way to protect himself from terror.

The film has quite a crew: talented young actors, screenwriter Michael Lerner, who worked for 20 years as a war correspondent for Newsweek, Oscar-nominated film editor Dennis Virkler, Oscar-awarded sound producer Bob Bimmer ("Speed" and "Gladiator") and talented computer graphics coordinator Sergei Nevshupov ("Lord of The Rings" and "Avatar"). Animation consultant on the set was Alexander Dorogov, who's known for his work with Walt Disney Feature Animation.

Fayziev said he initially planned foreign professionals on key production roles, "so that they showed us how to do decent movies correctly and to speed up the process."

We are used here to prefer Hollywood movies to local, because the latter are less visual. Well, this one pulls the image pretty well and might be the first made on such a level in Russia.

Visually stunning propaganda; see TWICE BORN first . . .

[tadpole-596-918256 · 8/10 · 12 December 2013]

. . . to appreciate the difference between a central European modern-day war movie that is balanced and NOT designed to Demonize one side compared to AUGUST EIGHTH, where every incident EXCEPT one token gesture at the end appears coldly calculated to make one half of a conflict non-human (think the Orcs in the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, or the aliens in the ALIEN series of sci-fi flicks). AUGUST EIGHTH concerns the trouble with Ossetia, which used to be in the U.S.S.R. After reading the 28-page, single-spaced Wikipedia article on this 2008 "war," it's clear the roots can be traced back to Adam and Eve. The scenery where some of this conflict occurred is beautiful, and the CGI is more realistic and amazing then what you would get from a FAST & FURIOUS or DIE HARD feature. The endangered son Tyoma's obsession with robots, which he conflates with his dad, also comes to the screen without Hollywood overkill, but with lots of pizazz. Tyoma's heroic super mom Kseniya (played by Svetlana Ivanova, along the lines of a much younger and more athletic Julia Roberts) is one of the most memorable characters of the year, as is her main savior among the Russian troops, "reconaissance" man Lyokha. However, there's plenty enough heroes here for the Russian side without frequent cuts to a Putin-like "President" character risking America's wrath in the Kremlin war room by deciding to go "all in" and attack an area vacated by 1,000 U.S. military war game allies hours earlier. Nor is it necessary to put EVERY ONE of hundreds of anti-Russian fighters in black face masks to lessen their equal standing as human beings. As Tyoma's "Cosmoboy" would say to his robot protectors, "Aza Nisi Mazamaravati Chandrika!"

A very enjoyable film

[harryplinkett14 · 9/10 · 30 January 2019]

I enjoyed this film so much. It proves that propaganda can be delightful. This film delves fearlessly into propaganda, passes infinity, and loops back to become something I really liked a lot. I liked the characters, I liked the plot, despite its formulaic structure, and I liked the Playstation-style warfare. It's all so charming that you go with it, even until the predictable ending. And there is justice here: Russia strikes back at the torrent of lies and ideological abuse coming from various western countries. And at the end of the day, it is more truthful than anything CNN will ever report. Russia did come to save the day, and protect South Ossetia from a brutal invasion by Georgia. I say Russia deserves a little treat in the form of this film.

BASED ON THE TRAGEDY OF 2008 ... PAINFULLY HEARTFELT MOVIE

[SoverniX · 9/10 · 22 February 2021]

More than 10 years have passed since the events of August 2008. I remember well how I was returning to Moscow along the Minsk highway when I heard a radio message with an alarmed intonation: "Georgia has started military operations on the territory of South Ossetia."

I have seen and heard about the film of Janik Fayziyev more than once. My expectations almost matched what I saw on the screen, barely holding back tears in particularly emotional scenes. The young director did a decent job, successfully embodying bold and creative ideas. One of them is a story about a boy who dreamed of robots-as an inseparable line from the general plot, which in fact became the center in the abyss of the main events. It is worth noting that the young actor did not play, but lived his role even in those silent moments when he, cowering under the table, looked through his mother's messages on the phone.

Separately, I would like to say thank you to Janik for the theme of maternal love, vividly reflected in the picture. The film left mixed touching feelings, reminding again of eternal values...

P.S. When the first time the film was turned on in the company of friends, they did not perceive the first minutes with animation and with exclamations like "what nonsense", "children's cinema", "is this the whole movie going to be like this?". As a result, the viewing was stopped. And for some reason I was offended that the picture is judged by the first minutes. But it is not for nothing that they say that if you are waiting for something good, it will definitely come to you. And so it happened (and the very next day). Someone suggested that we watch the movie after all. But the most interesting thing is that as you watch it, everyone who was nearby gathered at the screen. And outside, in the light of Sunday morning, spring was waking up, and the sky, our common and peaceful, blinded everything around with its bright, vast blue...