An Estonian, a Chechen, and a Georgian locked together in a house during the Abkhasian war just after the breakdown of the Soviet Union. This alone made me interested in the movie. The set up was quite good and could make for an interesting story about the these so different and so similar people all united by their belonging to the Soviet world.
But unfortunately the movie soon slid into a predictable and dull moralistic tale which got worse the more it continued until finally culminating in a farcical deux ex machina.
The message of the movie is quite simple and this has been done thousands of times in other movies. You get noble enemies who gradually become friends and the simple twist of the plot in the end gives us a predictable resolution.But if the director of the movie wanted to really give a human dimension to all characters he/she didn't need to place this external evil in the face of the Russians to make his/her point. Instead we see the most idiotic caricature scene with the Russian peace keepers arriving to the place and for no reason wanting to shoot the Chechen.
I mean come on, how more cliché can it be? So you have all these noble people, the Georgian, the two Estonians, the noble Chechen with his chivalric code of honoring his word, and even the Abkhasians come off as noble (offering their help with the harvest of mandarines) and then you have these cardboard villain characters of Russian soldiers, who arrive and straight off the bat start to abuse the Chechen guy and then try to shoot him, only to be killed (3-4 of them) by the Georgian in a very unrealistic scene. To top it in the worst cliché ever the already left for dead officer (who didn't look like an officer) shoots the Georgian guy in a most abused Hollywood plot twist way possible. I wish the director just went straight out and said in the beginning that he hated the Russians and be done with that. That would save me an hour and a half of my life.
But unfortunately the movie soon slid into a predictable and dull moralistic tale which got worse the more it continued until finally culminating in a farcical deux ex machina.
The message of the movie is quite simple and this has been done thousands of times in other movies. You get noble enemies who gradually become friends and the simple twist of the plot in the end gives us a predictable resolution.But if the director of the movie wanted to really give a human dimension to all characters he/she didn't need to place this external evil in the face of the Russians to make his/her point. Instead we see the most idiotic caricature scene with the Russian peace keepers arriving to the place and for no reason wanting to shoot the Chechen.
I mean come on, how more cliché can it be? So you have all these noble people, the Georgian, the two Estonians, the noble Chechen with his chivalric code of honoring his word, and even the Abkhasians come off as noble (offering their help with the harvest of mandarines) and then you have these cardboard villain characters of Russian soldiers, who arrive and straight off the bat start to abuse the Chechen guy and then try to shoot him, only to be killed (3-4 of them) by the Georgian in a very unrealistic scene. To top it in the worst cliché ever the already left for dead officer (who didn't look like an officer) shoots the Georgian guy in a most abused Hollywood plot twist way possible. I wish the director just went straight out and said in the beginning that he hated the Russians and be done with that. That would save me an hour and a half of my life.
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