El francotirador de Dombás

Ignore the negative hit pieces reviews that are clearly political coloured.

IMHO and simply taking this as a straightforward movie without any political consideration, it does it's job really well. None of the emotionally fraught moments of the journey are over dramatized. Nothing is swelled on so there is a constant sense of progression yet nothing is rushed. Attention to detail is good and the acting and cinematography are both strong.

If you like war films and particularly ones with a Sniper focus or element, and you do not have strong political views over Ukraine vs Russia I think you will thoroughly enjoy this film.

It is very nice to see that Ukrainian cinematography is developing. It is all the more important that the picture was released in such difficult times for our country.

Of course, the picture does not reach the level of Hollywood action films or films about war. But it is still a worthy attempt to reach a new level. A good story that develops rapidly. A character who adheres to his principles develops and changes. It's cool and it's addictive.

I give 8 points. Yes, maybe overstated. But I myself know very well what war is. And how difficult it is to step over one's own boundaries in order to effectively fight the enemy.

Who says every movie has to be made with the Hollywood, CGI and Adrenalin Push that creates a virtual reality to make it a money making operation. Nice to see a film with imperfections that make it real to life. Let the viewer develop some ideas of his own for once as opposed to a movie always expressing what we need to think. I feel this movie is better than the Maverick thingy with Cruise.

Doesn't that remind you another movie, where a Russian sniper was trying to wipe out his nemesis, a Nazi sniper? It was then Jude law vs Ed Harris who played those opponents and it took place during WW2, in a movie directed in 2001 by Jean Jacques Annaud...I won't name it, you all know which film it is about, and it is more than obvious that the Ukrainian movie which I review now is inspired by this 2001 one. This time, the Russians are shown as the Nazis and the Ukrainians as the "former" Russians, who, strangely NOW, in 2022-2023, accuse Ukrainians to be themselves Nazis.... Plus lead by a Jewish !!!!!

So that said this war movie is one of the first describing this gruesome war. It is tough, rough, gritty, riveting. It is a hit in the face. A true gem.

Starts out bizarrely, a teacher and his wife are living the ultimate hippy lifestyle off the grid, maybe this is more prevalent than I've been exposed to, but for the movie, it just seems weird and pointless.

The news reports on them for a sensation piece presumably, but doesn't immediately follow up after his wife is killed..... odd.

It's a great motive for joining a military, but he simply doesn't fit in, and the training, if you want to call it that, is on par with kids playing, but with real guns.

There is literally 2 training scenes on the range, and we're off to fight the war.... except hero boy doesn't bother to listen to his commander, because he's got a good shot on 2 random fighters. Never mind that the commander knows why they're out there, looking for the enemy snipers, but nope, blown away because hero boy couldn't keep his round in his rifle.

Jump to our hero immediately somehow being the go to guy for sniping.... and now he's of course refilling his own ammunition and everything..... So either the pacing of the movie is terrible, and a fair amount of time has passed without any indication of such, or it's just a terrible script.

I'm suspecting it's the latter, since randomly hero boy who didn't seem to get along with his 5 classmates (though he also didn't seem to not get along with them either, there was next to zero emotions showed either way). When two of them went on a mission, off screen and unbeknownst to the viewers, he starts asking about them multiple times, awkwardly. Only for one of them to be dead of course. But wait.... here comes more lack of any emotion...

It ended quite predictably, not a bad thing, but also not riveting.

For the life of me I cannot figure out why they were constantly loading their first round by hand, when the rifles were all magazine fed, unless it's for that one extra round of capacity, than that's fine, but other than that, it makes no sense to do it. I've served in the Canadian military and fired an assortment of weapons, semi auto, full auto, belt fed, mag fed. Never any sniper rifles, so maybe snipers do have a reason for it, just seems unlikely though, and that it was added by someone unfamiliar with weapons.

Oh and to say it's a political statement or propaganda movie, meh, almost every movie is to some extent, even children's cartoons, this one just happens to be a current issue one. It doesn't even detract from the movie.