Fantassins, seuls en première ligne

Anyone who has enjoyed the "Sharpe" series would probably enjoy this film. It is a fairly well done period piece with lots of action and a modern directorial and editing style. The film, however, lacks any meaningful character development and the movie suffers as a result. If the film was a bit longer perhaps this problem could have been remedied. I suspect a lot of the film was cut to get it under a 2 hour running time. The production values are good and the battle sequence at the end is well done. Unfortunately, the DVD I obtained (the international version) was not well done. The picture is letterboxed and not anamorphic and there are visible compression artifacts through the entire film. This is a real shame as it appears a good deal of work was put into composing and lighting many of the shots and all of this work cannot be fully appreciated with the poor video quality.

I normally.dont review a movie but this horrible movie makes me to do it because Russians mocks all nations in this movie. Decent battle scenes from Youtube makes me watch whole movie. Poles are portrayed as alcoholics and primitive villagers,Swedes like some evil psychos who want to just destroy everything and French as arrogant snobs. Only Germans are portrayed as decent people what is not bad but how they mock everyone else is ridiculous. Russians are portrayed just as victims who has wisdom and are above the things,brave and.rightful. No matter of historical context of this war. Costumes,camera angles and other technical things are right for me but I feel some bighead thinking in this movie. Battle scenes are well made except that thing they made Swedes looks like cowards sometimes. Battle scenes arent historically accurate but fit well for the movie. So battles,visuals and plot are cool anything else makes me angry so 3 points.

First of all, the battle of Poltava is very far from the center of this movie, so the international title is very misleading. Second, the story sucked. Big-time. Two french noble mens, one on the Russian side and one on the Swedish side, just for them to meet and settle at the end? Ridiculous.

All the foreign characters are played by Russian actors, and the foreign language is done by voice over, which is done really bad by the way.

The clothing is historical incorrect, with the officers on both sides looking like the Napoleonic offers during Waterloo. I guess Oleg Ryaskov got some inspiration from Sergei Bondarchuk's Waterloo. Except there is more than 100 years apart from these two battles. And for example, the Swedish attack wasn't lead by Karl XII (because he was wounded and couldn't lead Sweden in battle), it was lead by Carl Gustaf Rehnskiöld. I could go on and on about historical incorrectness.

The sound effects are the same throughout the movie. There is this exact same sound every time someone stabs another, and the guns all sound the same.

This is not a movie worth watching in my opinion.

An action adventure. The picture of the screenwriter and director Oleg Ryaskov, who is known to the general public only by two TV series "Notes of the forwarder of the Secret Chancellery", but before that he shot this full meter. And I can say with confidence that he took into account the mistakes of this work. For the first time I looked at this picture more than ten years ago, and then I almost did not remember it, and now I understand why it happened - boredom. And here's my brief opinion for you - Do you speak rashshan? The picture had both pros that should be mentioned, and cons that dragged her to the bottom of Russian cinema. This concludes the much-needed introduction, and let's get to the point.

So, the pros: 1. Costumes and scenery - the picture is centered around the Northern War, specifically around the Battle of Poltava, the victory in which was the most massive and significant in Russian military history before Borodin. The uniforms of Russians and Swedes exactly correspond to historical prototypes, and the costumes of the French nobility and especially ladies' outfits are perfectly seen on the representatives of the beautiful half of humanity. The scenery, although budget-friendly, creates a sense of mass character and generally immerses in Europe and Russia of the early eighteenth century. The specialists in costumes and decorations have worked out their money one hundred percent. There are no complaints here (unless, of course, you are an expert in the military history of this period, who may notice technical flaws).

2. Battle scenes - the Battle of Poltava itself is shown well (although some key points are omitted), and create the effect of involvement in what is happening for the viewer. Explosions, shots, hand-to-hand fights, especially fencing pleased. You can see the refinement of movements, training and a kind of grace, if the fights can be called that. It is clear that these technical specialists were there, so the viewer will be delighted with such scenes. These scenes look good even now, in our digital age.

3. Alexander Bukharov is the only actor who is able to interest the viewer and who causes at least some emotions, because his character is very charismatic, and he at least tries to speak the way they did at that time, and in general the only one who is sorry. The rest - well, so-so.

So, the cons: 1. Scenario - two aristocrats quarreled in Paris on a far-fetched pretext, it came to a duel, which is prohibited by decree of the king, and then His Majesty decides to punish the fearless insolents. He sends one to Charles the Twelfth, and the second to the Russian tsar Peter the Great literally on the eve of the Battle of Poltava, so that they both would be observers and report all the most interesting things to their monarch. But these letters of recommendation contain something else. Here they also brought in a line of Polish mutts who kill Russian soldiers in the near rear, the line of the beloved of one of the duelists. In general, it turned out to be such a mess that you don't even want to look at. I implore you - rewind immediately to the Battle of Poltava and imagine that you are watching a kind of short film, because this battle is not a frequent guest in the cinema.

2. Logic - oh oh oh! There are big problems with her here, and they begin with a fatal duel, the pretext for which looks so far-fetched that you already want to laugh. The relationship between "our" Frenchman and the hero Bukharov is just a joke to the chickens. And this is just the beginning. If I paint everything thoroughly, then the review will be in fifty parts. And the finale will finish you off with its illogicality.

3. English credits - Oleg Ryaskov and company! Who did you make this picture for? Just if for the Western market, then the abundance of stamps and rigid stereotypes about Russia are clear, and if you did it for the Russian market and the CIS countries, then this whole set will cause irritation rather than patriotism, because it feels that it was the patriotic education that was aimed at, but you turned the other way. It's good that at least the "Notes of the forwarder of the Secret Chancellery" turned out to be good, and all the nonsense of the "Servant of the sovereign" is missing in them.

4. Speech - why do Russian soldiers talk as is customary now, in the twenty-first century? No one said that back then. Maybe at least Mr. Ryaskov would have read the documents before writing a script for a historical picture!

5. Characters - they are dummies who perform only functions. No one is remembered, although there are Chadov, Chindyaykin, Arntholz and so on. There was potential, but they didn't have time to realize it, it's a pity, because the result is more than modest.

6. Boredom - when the characters don't cling, then the viewer stops following the script, which almost happened to me. It was painful to watch this nonsense, but I overcame it. But he yawned very loudly at the same time.

In general, we have another failure of Russian cinema, which had good makings, but they could not really develop them. The script and the character buried him. I'm sorry for the time spent on it.

As a result, we have a failed action adventure, with a frankly bad script, missing acting. Great costumes and scenery, such music.

My rating is 4 out of 10 and I do not recommend this picture for viewing!

This my 2 cents just adding to what anybody else written.

I feel the movie is made just the way a teenagers war movie is expected to be. Something always saves the hero (or important character) in the last minute or even last breath (typical)! The bad guys have no chance, they drop like flies. So no more comment necessary I think, the movie is what you might expect plus a little childish.

No, no relationships or love story here.

Blod and gore, yes absolutely and it is funny too. When director wants to shock you some of the more important characters get hit perfectly in the center of the forehead, so it becomes a bit amusing.

Still it is an OK movie but nothing more. Have to add that some footage is very good.

The "big battle" is no big battle. The Swedish king Carl you learn nothing about, he is just someone on the other side of the battlefield. The best "big battle" which really oozes of realism/authenticity, is in the absolutely superb movie Gettysburg. The battle sequences in this movie are not important, not to the movies main story or as a "history class". No strategy is revealed.

So the movie is what it is and that is about the two Chivalliers from France sent to Russia as a punishment for dueling. This is how the movie starts off, and above I've written what the movie is not.

========= This has nothing to do with the review but, someone wondered about the Swedish voice-overs.

Voice 1: Halting severely, not a Swede. Used for the older characters.

Voice 2: Initially extremely good Swedish but then deteriorating so he is a foreigner.

Voice 3: Surely not a Swede, and I expect a German or a Russian very good a German and then trying to speak Swedish.

Voice 4: Finnish/Swedish. It is Swedish as spoken in Finland, could be the real deal here. Only that voice disappears and does not come back, only used once.

Voice 5: Perfect Swedish, actually it is an accent, take Stockholm with a radius of about 50-100 miles. He is used for the lowly enlisted infantry soldiers. Not a mistake all the way to his very last sentence which made me wonder. OK, so he might not be a Swede but surely have lived here, maybe as a student. I try give an example but in English: instead of saying "we need to withdraw from the battlefield" it sounded clearly as if he said "we need to withdraw from the bottlefield", unless of course that IS what they called it several hundred years ago and I don't know that.

Voice 6: Perfect Swedish, no accent, so its "standard Swedish", no mistakes, must be a Swede. Also used only for the soldiers.

------ Also remember Swedish army used men from several countries so if they don't speak perfect Swedish then that might very well be perfectly alright. This is if anybody care about stuff like that. The movie is OK.