The Pilot

I believe this is based on a true story, and frankly the action sequences in the air reminded me of Dunkirk. The movie has it all and if you enjoy stories of survival, this one doesn't disappoint. Heroes are everywhere and here we have a pilot who goes the distance in fighting the good fight for his country. Man do we need more Nikolai Komlev's in the world. This isn't a propaganda movie, this is a movie! From my seat in the rear-gunner's, this is a movie that cuts to the chase and delivers the kabooms.

First up, this movie was made long before the invasion of Ukraine and anyone who thinks this was made as propaganda for that invasion needs to stop with the delusional thinking.

As usual, this WWII movie is superbly made, with great cinematography and superb aerial effects. I really wasn't sure if they had real aircraft or CGI a lot of the time, that's how good the aerial scenes are.

The leads play their roles well and the story is quite inspiring, not dissimilar to the Douglas Bader story for the British in WWII.

Well worth a viewing. Watch the Russian audio with subtitles, not a dubbed version. Why anyone watches dubbed movies is a mystery!

Watching "The Pilot" was a pleasure, first because of the quality of the air combat scenes, very well filmed. Another highlight is the editing of the film, which streamlined a predictable story, but which catches our attention. I liked!!

The Pilot. A Battle for Survival is a tense, survival war drama that doesn't shy away from the horrors of battle. If there were another war film to which I would compare this, it would be Harald Zwart's 2017 Norwegian historical drama film, The 12th Man (Norwegian: Den 12. Mann). Both present a gritty survival at all cost and live to fight another day approach to the war genre.

This was made before the invasion of Ukraine, not propaganda, not made by or for Putin. Many Americans don't understand about Russia and WWII. They sustained horrendous losses, something like 20 million, compared to 400,000 for the US. A lot of it was fought in their own country after the Nazis invaded. As a result the war is more deeply embedded in the Russian psyche. US WW-2 movies are about soldiers doing brave things far from home. Russians were defending their own cities where they had homes, family and sweethearts. Pilots were the best of the best, and in the film he flies and Ilyushin-II, an armored close ground support aircraft. It was a great plane, an entirely Soviet design, and they were proud of it. It was ideal for the kind of fighting they were doing. The film shows it getting hit hard repeatedly before it came down, and this was realistic. It was a heavily armored, very tough plane.