Flug durchs Feuer

I rented the DVD for this movie because I remembered reading about it when I was a kid. With this film, the Soviet Union attempted to "cash in" on the success of western disaster films like "Earthquake" and "The Towering Inferno." I rented the movie because I thought it might be interesting from an historical standpoint.

The film was about 20 minutes longer than it needed to be, and it suffers from too much set-up -- nothing disasterous happens until over an hour into the picture. But the carnage does eventually start, and those scenes are pretty good, especially the ones set at the airport located in a canyon. The effects crew did a remarkable job with what appeared to be meager resources.

I could have look beyond the "special effects" from the 1950's if this movie had a semi-decent plot line, but it did not. Someone in the USSR movie bureau decided to get together a bunch of actors and write a soap ... when the soap idea failed they decided to take the characters, give them uniform, and a earthquake to make a movie.

There are so many inaccuracies in the movie - besides the pathetic disaster sequences, I had a hard time figuring out the time line for the movie and was shocked to see the poor camera work ... I mean, can't they invest in a camera which did not reflect light (last scene.)

Just overall a poor movie. Usually movies with bad effects you can laugh off ... but you couldn't here because the movie just dragged on and on and on ...

This film is excellent, surpassing my expectations in terms of the quality of the film-making and in terms of the depth of the story. Not to ruin the suspense, but the aviation difficulties of the film are more of a resolution than a starting point of the plot. The special effects could have been better, the women could have been less hysterically cruel, the ending could have had less Russian sentimental comic relief; but the movie is successful in telling a story about human beings. I would rate it even higher if the women weren't so shrewish, but that's because I like a bit of fantasy in the films I watch.

It is a brilliant movie indeed, and I would strongly advise American audience NOT to see it, since the well-known action movie standards do not apply here. Dear American friends who left some comments here: European cinema, including Soviet and Russian of course, is a special case, the major focus is NOT on the quality of special effects. It has never been like that and never will be. In this movie good drama, showing complicated lives of each character, is perfectly combined with action. And there is definetely no need to compare it with american-style productions! Embarrassing comments I saw here indeed -- well, what else one could expect here from that part of the world !

I pretty like this movie not because of my special favor to aircraft disasters (although I like films like Turbulence or Airport) but because of outstanding bunch of actors starring here and because of our common knowledge that there were NO $ billions spent for effects. This film shows HOW you may do your job if you are a true PROFESSIONAL of cinema (and not just a guy who was chosen to spend much money for visual effects made by computer). If you may show great results without money, you are great. And this film is great. To Arik from Washington: I'm pretty sure you were a Soviet citizen :) People who came from USSR are often very hostile to anything produced there despite its real quality.