Fantassins, seuls en première ligne

I just watched the movie and all i can say is "WOW!" This is a truly beautiful film. It has everything that i personally want from a good movie. Lots of fighting a action, hot girls, an interesting plot, lots of blood, humor, beautiful camera work, a big ass battle toward the end, and even some sex! I just love it. I heard it was good when i started watching it, but I was just astonished how unbelievably brilliant yet simple it was. I was excited throughout the whole thing.

Oh my God, its so good. Everyone has to watch it! No, I take that back. Don't watch it, if you expect lots of romance, and stuff like that. Also don't if don't want to see any gore or brutality cause there's quite a lot of it there. I was surprised about it. Its not like I don't like it, we are all just so used to the good old PGs or PG-13s that Hollywood is throwing at us twice a month.

Anyway, watch it, you will not regret it, I promise.

...though not without flaws.

The main flaw was the plot, which sometimes seemed a bit contrived and incoherent, in particular the love story plot line. There were some clichés that could have been avoided or at least played differently, but once I got used to the fact that the whole thing was a sort of Three Musketeers meets Saving Private Ryan genre mash, that didn't bother me too much.

What starts out as a depiction of the splendor and pomp of Versailles under the Sun King eventually becomes a fairly brutal war story where several competing groups face each other, more accurately depicting the sometimes chaotic situation on the Russo-Polish borderlands during much of the late 17yh to early 18th century. Seemingly sympathetic characters are killed almost as an afterthought, and witnessing the differing reactions of the two protagonists - one French, the other Russian - brings home the differences in culture and outlook between them.

Kudos to the Russian film industry for their efforts towards historical correctness at least in props and settings, and for making the different characters speak different languages. Not knowing too much French, I cannot judge the pronunciation of the French lines spoken in the movie. Being Norwegian, and knowing a thing or two about the language spoken on the other side of the border to the east, I can say something about the Swedish lines spoken. In short, they ranged from obviously foreign (particularly on the part of the Swedish doctors) to what sounded seamlessly native. Since the Swedish army did incorporate a lot of foreigners, I didn't find that particularly odd. In any case, I've rarely seen a Hollywood movie do the same, it seems that making someone speak English with a funny accent is about as far as they are willing to go in the language department, at least up to fairly recently.

All in all a solid piece of production with a few rough edges. I'd like to see more Russian historical films, since there is a lot of interesting (and action-packed) history there to be made films of.

Good movie, REALLY SUCKED as documentary Im from Sweden, don't get me wrong, this IS a nice movie. Really enjoyed the whole picture, really enjoyed the SwedesAreBad parts, because we actually did do BAD things at 1709. The invented story with the details about french observers, the black rider etc was nice 2, worked fine to make the movie 'going'. (Karl XII was by the way hurt in one foot by a bullet before battle, nice thing to make a movie main char do this in the movie) Just some clarification's about the battle, because it is tense, well-done and SUCKS as historical document… The whole redutt fight was a misunderstanding – Swedish orders was to run thru reduttes just before morning/sun-break – thru to the fields beyond. Unclear orders made 2000 out of 8000 infantries die at reduttes in vain and only captured some of them. (6000 ran thru as ordered) At main battle of Poltava-battle (after reduttes), 6000 Swedish infantry's attacked 18000 (!) likewise Russians. The Swedes had gunpowder for one shot only and no artillery at all. The Russian army used all the modern artillery they disposed. It was a slaughter, and approx 3000 or more Swedes were Dead Meat before able to make their first and only shot in this fight. Tsar Peter dwelled inside Russian camp whole battle (generals made all decisions) – and no glorious cavalry charge changed the tide of battle at Poltava. Notable: in fact cavalry at this time had lost most of its OFFENSIVE capabilities (example: 60 years earlier Swedish infantry slaughtered the royal Polish cavalry outside Warsaw with no cavalry support). Cavallery at this time was mostly used vs cavalry, vs flanks or vs fleeing runners. The first outcome of Poltava was obvious for the remains of Swedish infantry, documents state them hiding under dead friends, sniped to death from distance by Russians. The second outcome was political: Sweden forever erased from the list of super-dominating nations. Im happy for that part. For example: Bin Laden ignores us :) I see this screen strictly as adventure but pointless if You wanna know what really happened – and in fact rate this Adventure to 7/10.

My 2 cents. /S

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.

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.