User reviews

An amazing story of a Leonid. Berenshtein depicts bravery and heroism exercised by a special regiment under his command during WWII.

His Jewish background assured silence about his activities in a post-war Soviet era.

Storytelling by a major character in a fragile aged state, visualised by an actors' play is a brilliant approach of which materialisation would even more impress if script, uniforms deployed, performing could a bit more be detailed.

Screening this movie of a Soviet Army tonight, in a middle of RF operation in Ukraine, bears some special meaning as one could feel.

IN A NUTSHELL: Based on a true story, the film is about Leonid Berenshtein, one the last of the great partisans, who located Hitler's "wonder weapon." He returns to the war that took away his feelings and identity, yet failed to rob him of his values as a human being.

The film was directed by Roman Shumunov. The writers were Simon Schecter, Tasha Karlyuka, and Vyacheslav Tkachov.

Already, it has been nominated for "Best Sound" at the Israeli Film Academy, "Best Feature" at the Israeli Film Festival in Montreal, and at the Stony Brook Film Festival.

At the end of the movie, we read these words on the screen: "Dedicated to the soldiers and partisans of WWII who saved humanity from its greatest threat."

THINGS I LIKED: We get to see photos of the real Leonid Berenshtein at the end of the film. Sadly, he passed away in 2019, shortly before this movie was made. What a gift that his descendants will get to learn about all of the brave things he did to fight against the Nazi army.

I wasn't familiar with any of the European actors. They all did a fine job.

I watched the film dubbed in English.

One of the voice talents sounded like Liam Neeson at the beginning of the movie. Unfortunately, it wasn't him.

The first battle scene we see is near Kiev, Ukraine. We see title cards that identify other areas of Ukraine and Poland where the soldiers fought.

Before the final rolling credits, we get to see pictures of the real people in the story and learn about what happened to them after the war.

The explosions and destruction looked pretty real.

The overall feeling of the movie is sobering, yet hopeful. It's truly amazing to see what people did to sacrifice in order to save others and their country during World War II.

The movie made me want to learn more about the Partisans who fought to protect their homeland.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE: The blood and wounds look pretty fake.

It would have been nice to get to know more about the characters.

I like it when war movies show maps so we can better understand where the events take place. Unfortunately, we don't see much of that in this film.

Some of the voice acting in the dubbed American version wasn't very good.

TIPS FOR PARENTS: We see blood and gore Lots of war violence with various weapons High dead-body count We see brutal deaths Kids will be bored or frightened or both.

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How much of this is true? Probably most of it, or at least it's told as well as Berenshtein himself knew how to tell it.

A story during WW2 of Russian resistance against the German onslaught, with Berenshtein apparently in a few quandaries, one of which is whether or not to even reveal his real name.

The story is ultra confusing. And it's hard to understand the dialog. It's dubbed in English, and without subtitles, you really can't understand more than a few words by any actor other than the main character.

Still, you do get a "feel" for what is going on. It's just confusing. There is a commander over Berenshtein, but he is also a leader of what seems to be a squad.

One command character parachutes in early and gives Berenshtein's commander some static about his role in the war. They're supposed to cover for thousands of troops crossing a river.

Berenshtein is part of an intelligence unit, and the plot jumps into the future without explanation often. At one point, although they are lacking in food, Berenshtein is at a dinner for officers, and one of them angers him, but I have no idea what the anger is from. He invites the officer outside and hits the officer, and then nothing else happens from this incident.

Later, he parachutes with his squad into a place further West, landing in Poland, where he doesn't want to be. We're led to believe he's a hundred miles from his destination, then we hear him say he's two miles away, so again there is confusion.

The squad learns of a German super weapon that sounds like something Captain America would run into, and their plans change. Their plans change again to do a humanitarian effort. Do they get back to the Captain America plan? I won't tell you.

I think the point here is that everyone is confused in the war, and that's okay, because that's the point of the movie I think.