Tali-Ihantala 1944

First of all, I have to say that I had huge expectations about the movie. I went to theater to see some mind-blowing action. I was hoping that Åke Lindman had made something spectacular as his last movie. I also believed in his directing talents. Now I sadly have to say that the movie didn't fulfill my expectations.

The movie was a bit bouncing: Going there, doing that, coming back and going again. Different people fought in different places and sometimes it was hard to follow what was happening as a whole. Well this wasn't too disturbing as the movie still was entertaining. Especially all tank-scenes were amazing. The lack of money, which was clearly visible, was maybe the most disruptive thing in the movie. As mentioned in the movie, there were about 250 cannons and mortars, plus bomber planes, targeting the Tali-Ihantala area. But when the "big fight" came, it looked like about 10 guns were bombing the woods with smoke grenades (And I can say this because I have served in mortar company in the Finnish army). I'm sure it looked like that because there were not enough money to make it look realistic. I was also hoping more soldiers running in the woods because hey, it was supposed to be the biggest fight in the northern Europe!

Now the rating of the movie. I was balancing between 6 and 7. I would have wanted to give it 7 points, but as I was thinking it, the movie actually left me disappointed. It wasn't as astonishing as I wanted. It was just another Finnish war movie, and even Tuntematon sotilas from the year 1955 and especially The Winter war from 1989 are much better movies than this one.

So, should you go to watch Tali-Ihantala? a) Finnish movie business needs your money, so YES! b) If you like Finnish war movies, definitely yes. But if you decide to go watch it, don't have too big expectations so you won't be disappointed.

P.S. Not a single mortar was shown during the movie. Why? Glad they mentioned them though ;)

I'm a huge fan of Finnish war movies. I went to great pains to import copies of TALVISOTA, both versions of TUNTEMATON SOTILAS, BEYOND THE FRONT LINE (a good, less-ambitious run-up to this film), and AMBUSH. Of all those, TALVISOTA is easily the best, though the 1955 version of SOTILAS is a close second. It seems to me all the others are in no way able to match TALVISOTA in terms of raw absorbing action, realism, and suspense.

TALI-IHANTALA 1944 fails dramatically to establish any sort of narrative. There are no characters and no plot beyond sticking to historic events. You'll see a 10-minute vignette such as that of a forward artillery observer who gets wounded. When the Russians overwhelm his position, he runs off into the forest and the film never mentions him again! He's not the only one - this happens to every character! There is no closure or any attention given to anybody.

The action scenes are plentiful and often exciting but feel sloppily, haphazardly staged, and often (in spite of lots of great period armor) quite cheap as well! The film even has to rely on stock footage for its portrayal of the German air assault later in the film. It makes you wonder why they even bothered including the subplot, as it adds absolutely nothing! We don't even get a sense of the damage being done or the amount of lives lost until the final shot in the film - which is just too little, too late.

I am quite happy that they managed to rig up a lot of historically accurate T-34/85s and even an extremely rare (nowadays) T-34/76. Also look for StugIII's, an ISU-152, and a KV-IS. Great stuff - too bad they didn't make better use of it. I'm a big tank/war buff and I still found myself drifting off to sleep during the battle scenes. The immediacy just isn't there - especially when there's only a couple dozen extras as soldiers (with no ammo packs or anything, mind you) when there should be thousands! Refreshingly, at least for American viewers like me who are fed up with CGI, there is very little computer-generated anything in this film. In fact, I don't think there really was any at all besides a quick flyover by a Soviet plane or two.

Like I said in the discussion-threads about this movie: this a documentary masquerading as a movie. There's zero character-development and "drama". What we have instead is warfare. No BS, just warfare. If you expect good characters and all the other things you could find in other movies, this is not a movies for you. But if you are interested in warfare, then this movie delivers.

And to comment on the review by Mr. Stensson from Sweden: Continuation War is in fact _widely_ discussed in Finland :). And fighting alongside Germans was realistically speaking the only choice. Allying with the West was not possible, since Germany occupied Norway. Allying with Sweden was attempted, but Soviets would not allow it. Allying with Soviets was not an option, since they kept on harassing Finland after the war, and it was thought that they would resume hostilities sooner or later. And I would say that the West made a deal with the devil as well. In many ways the Stalinist USSR was just as bad as Nazi-Germany was.

Like it's name says, Continuation War was a direct continuation of Winter War. Had Winter War not happened, there would not have been Continuation War. And we all know who started the Winter War....

Finns never attempted to attack Leningrad, and they in fact voluntarily stopped at the old border in the Karelian Isthmus (well, they straightened the front by going over the border in the middle, but that's about it). Had they wanted to, they could have taken Leningrad, since Soviets had moved most of their troops against the Germans.

I would like to know what we _should_ have done instead? And in any case: hindsight is always 20/20. What all this has to do with the qualities of this particular movie is beyond me... If you want to further discuss this topic, my advice is to head to the discussion-forum.

I really don't understand why this movie does not rate much, much more highly. It seems that Finns are the harshest critics. While they may have their reasons, for a wider audience I can't think of many better films on WW2. (I am Australian btw).

This is a detailed, gripping retelling of a little known war. The attention to detail is outstanding, whether it is the tanks, the scenes, the positions or the thinking behind it all. For a minor language film (sorry Finns but it is the case) it is particularly lavish in quality, scope & depth.

No, it is not a character drama. To be honest, the characters are only to hold the wider story together. If character drama is what you are after, look elsewhere or be disappointed. That is NOT what Tali- Inhatala is all about. I get the feeling that this movie was intended to be a statement for history & future generations - "this is what happened & how". It succeeds remarkably well in achieving this.

A superb movie & historical record. Very, very highly recommended.

If you are expecting your standard war film with a overly melodramatic love story plot line and all the other standard war film plot devices you are looking from the wrong place: Tali-Ihantala 1944 is more of a documentary trying to portray all the military units, which took part of the battle, which turned the war luck in Finland/Russia war to the advantage of Finland.

For a movie there is just too many characters in the story, which are left to the background of the greater drama of warfare. The film shows quite effectively how the military units work together and solely. There's very little sugar coating of the war, so in a word, you could have made three or four different war films from the material portrayed here in. The biggest issue here is, that this would have worked much better as a documentary series, with each episode concentrating on different units and key people. Now the film is too heavy, yet still too short.