V avguste 44-go

This film is not just another banal heroic epic, which is typical for Russia in terms of WWII movies. No, this work of Mr. Ptashuk is a great, impeccable and fresh one. It has some soft humor, excellent suspense, marvelous plot and very strong play of all the actors. The story takes place in 1944, when the Soviet Army has liberated all of the Russian territory and reached the Polish border. The regular army is busy with its movements and relocations, and nearby, the woods of Belarus / Lithuania / Poland, the Soviet intelligence service called Smersh - Death To Spies, is tracking down the well-organized fascist group consisting of Russians - the traitors who had chosen to serve the Nazi Germany. This secret group is extremely sly, cautious, and does some great spying work. So, the Smersh group has to catch them as soon as possible, being under threat of death penalty if their work is not a success. The main hero, played by Evgeni Mironov, is a cool, calm and collected professional, he know his work well and he follows the spy gang all the time, till he and his aids meet the enemies on a wood meadow. The main spy, played excellently by Aleksandr Baluyev, a merciless, cruel criminal, who is a real master too. Their tense dialog is a central part of the whole film and the unexpected final is a real success. This is a rare case of a really great, smart and very thrilling war movie. Recommended!

I like war history and like to watch war movies. This one, in my opinion, is nothing more that a very unbelivable story about supermen from special secret police forces which seek an enemy intelligence group in Belorussian forests. The movie is full of historcal and technical mistakes, actors' works except of one are poor, the one is Chief of Food Depot which is absolutely perfect but only about one minute long. All action goes about three houses, two glades and one truck. For me the most puzzle is where the declared something about 40-million US $ budget for the movie was spent?

what you must consider before commenting on this movie is that it is based on a great book by Vladimir Bogomolov, which is quite long and detailed. As a result, making a movie based on that book has been a very difficult task. I recommend reading the book before watching the movie so as to understand what is going on, because the movie sort of 'dives in'. If you do not feel like reading the book, then at least spend half an hour reading about Belarus in 1944 and the Smersh, which translates from Russian as 'Death to Spies'. I you have no idea what the front was like in 1944 and have not read the book, you could be somewhat disappointed with the movie.

Truth is one of the most valuable things on earth. Getting truth is a hard challenge even nowadays, but during the Second World War it was an almost impossible one. Furthermore the risk were higher and the bet was life. Moment of truth on counterintelligence's slang means the releasing time of discovering that all your guesses were correct and you are holding a prey in your teeth. Special services of the Soviet Union had been struggling for 5 years to protect the army from enemy's spies and a great number of officers met their death trying to catch the slight sign of the Moment of Truth. The film sets on the story about three man seeking for a group of enemy's spies in the eastern Belarussia in the summer of 1944 almost at the end of the WWII. The plot of the film is based on documents of that time (of course, real names, dates and numbers are replaced) that were completing the book of the same title by Vladimir Bogomolov. The Moment of Truth is a masterpiece of Russian literature and one of the first stories, that tells about special services of soviet times. There are lots of myths the world based on stories about soviet intelligence but this seems to be the nearest to the truth. Moreover the book deviates from the majority of tales about the war because it doesn't contain soviet pathos and any ideological overtones. The grate amount of literature tells as about the heroism of common solder (in British tradition called Tommy) at the forefront, but usually forgets about espionage in the rearward. This story is quite disparate. The fate of counterintelligence officers during WWII was not a piece of cake. They died frequently but continued their work even if they hadn't much time, resources or evidence. All in all, I would like to say that the film and the book are worth our attention. "Make love, not war" people used to say in the second half of the XXth century. That is reasonable but the humanity should not consign The Second World War to oblivion in order to prevent repeating of such a woeful occasion.

Pros:

This movie does not force a bunch of cheesy propaganda down your throat. No banner waving so typical for American flicks, no bad Germans and good Russians so typical for Soviet war movies. In fact, there are no Germans in it! All you see a bunch of SMERSH guys doing their job, and doing it well. Technically, the movie is very accurate. Uniforms, weapons, vehicles... all top notch. Very nice locations, settings, camera work and editing.

Cons:

The story lacks action and any kind of suspense. Which would be almost OK if it was 40 minutes shorter. I wish the director had better script to work with.

The verdict: An average Soviet (in this case, post-Soviet) war flick, decently shot and acted but pretty boring.

The rating: 5/10.

Go see Das Boot if you want a really striking non-Hollywood WWII movie.