5 Days of War

Its not propaganda, its sad that russians hate themselfs that much that they give 1 star to the truth, like chernobyl. 1 Stars becouse they bealive that russian propaganda.

"We came here to cover a war, if we don't get a story this will all unfold unseen." This is an emotional and sometimes tense movie about reporters in Georgia during the war with Russia. Thomas Anders (Friend) is an American journalist sent to document the growing tension between the two countries. When war breaks out it is up to him to report and get the truth out. This is a movie that is pretty moving and tense, but also very slow. A mix between battle scenes and the reporters dodging bullets trying to stay alive long enough to get the story out to the rest of the world. If you like movies like the "Bang-Bang Club" this will very much appeal to you. I did enjoy this movie, but it seemed like it was just not quite as good as it could have been. The cast was great and it was a very good movie, but it had the possibility of being better. I'm not sure what it needed though. Overall, a good movie that could have been better. I give it a B-.

*Also try - Bang Bang Club

Well, all kinds of things went wrong with this movie.

For starters, the opening sequence is awesome. One thing this movie really had was best camera crew ever. Everything feels very intense all the times, very close to the real war footage. Also, all the props, vehicles, uniforms, even explosions look very real. This is the good part.

The mediocre part is main story. It's a mix of Hotel Rwanda and Tears of the Sun, but feels like a bootleg version, a cheap knockoff of those.

And then there's the bad part. Just after awesome intro, you get "treated" with shots of Tbilisi, with landmarks, people smiling, and god forbid, trancey music in the background. It looked like a commercial for some travel agency, with only "Visit Georgia" message missing from the scene and was most tasteless thing I've ever seen in a film. I live in similar post-soviet country and I do understand the mentality in desperate desire to explain your culture to the world to get less looked as some remote hellhole, but this is outright tasteless and maybe Georgia hasn't come to this yet.

The script had generally no direction. Awesome war scene here, some corpses there, cameramen and photography director knew what to do... But director didn't. First, that simple shot with church and bloody river from 'Tears of the Sun' gives 10 times stronger emotion than whole pile of bodies shown in '5 days of August'. Even though latter tries sooo hard to portray Russians as savages.

Second, despite awesome camera and props, fighting had no point in this movie. You see soldiers shooting stuff and each other, but it's unclear why or what's their plan. I don't think any people who had any idea about how soldiers and military works were on the set. Mi-24 choppers shooting random buildings with rockets? And here I thought that every pilot is given orders and targets to waste expensive munitions on... Also, MI-24 sports a deadly cannon, but it's used only once, missing everything, and soldiers act as chopper had blind men for pilot and gunner, not taking cover. Tanks constantly missing targets and not using machine guns? Taking down a chopper with a single LAW rocket? SU-bombers taking down a restaurant residing in basically nowhere? This all felt very bizarre and pointless.

I could go on, but there's no need. Let's just say that this movie is very average, has some good moments, lots of unmemorable moments, and some outright stupid ones. So pick it up from bargain bin, but don't expect too much.

6 stars I give are for 2 reasons: Awesome camera work (it felt like live action at places) and the fact that despite being incredibly dumb, this movie IS entertaining... and that's good, even if it's for all wrong reasons.

...as for amount of propaganda, this movie is 100% okay, considering what comes from Moscow. Sure it's all bloated and overrated but this is how we rock in those former USSR satellite countries. Even 50 of such movies can't counter a single evening news show from random Russian TV-channel. For westerners, you just have to accept that rules are different, but watching all those Normandy landings in every Hollywood movie and video game, maybe not as much as you might think.

I recognize, I will be subjectively. my ancestors are Georgians and the impression about that war was powerful. so, I love this movie. not very much but it is good price for the ambiguous speech of E.U., U.S.A. in the days of Russian aggression. the Olimpic Games were more important than massacres and cynical experiment of Moscow. yes, it is a propaganda film, not very inspired,naive, some stupid, unrealistic and full of American dusty recipes. an interesting script is prey of special effects. Manicheic rule is not best solution. but , more that, it is a lesson about Georgia existence. crumbs from Cold War, drops of friendship and heroism, cruelty in pure form, pieces of fake moments are ingredients of movie but not its essence. the American style to present fight of David against Goliath is only cloth for a profound story about hidden monsters. in fact, a cry of a lost world for who history is just bad wolf out of rules.

It's kind of unsettling reading some indignant reviews written in 2011 by people who described this movie as "shameful anti-Russian propaganda".

Fast forward to this wretched June 2022, after over 100 days of Russians waging war against Ukraine and you know that the Russians did everything showed in the movie and some more.

Apart from showing the aggressive, merciless attitude of the Russian and the tragic results, especially tragic when you hear the people interviewed at the end, the plot must necessarily focus on a small story, otherwise it would have been a documentary.

Rupert Friend is Thomas, the tough and silent war reporter caught in the Georgian-Russian conflict with his operator Sebastian and some locals, among which a pretty young girls named Tatia. Those who watched Homeland probably remember the attack launched by mistake against a group reunited for a wedding and here we have a re-run along the same lines that sets the plot in motion, which is perhaps not too wise.

Other defects of the script are the silly chess game between Thomas and a Russian commander and the usual evil and brutal antagonist bent on his personal revenge, which in the chaotic scenario of the movie seems very far fetched.

Apart from some over sentimental touch, the movie is more than ever a chilly reminder of disaster that may strike at any moment. Perhaps not the best war movie but realistic enough.