The story of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the female Russian sniper who killed 309 Germans on the Eastern Front in WW2.
Fascinating subject: the woman who was one of the most successful snipers in history and centred around one of the most heroic defensive battles of WW2. Should be an easy enough task to make this into a good movie, right?
Wrong. Somehow the writers and director Sergey Mokritskiy turn this story into something very lame. The battle scenes are reasonably well done, and quite realistic, but it's the rest that messes this up. Romantic sub-plots, the Eleanor Roosevelt angle, the political stuff: they all seem half-baked and just filler.
Add in some atrocious supporting performances - the "American" journalists (most seemed to be Russian pretending to be American) are particularly bad. Yuliya Peresild puts in a solid performance in the lead role though.
Even the title is badly done - the Battle for Sevastopol actually takes up less than half of the movie and is not the main focus of the film, Lyudmila Pavlichenko is.
Concentrate on Lyudmila Pavlichenko, leave out all the half-baked romantic stuff, silly sub-plots and sentimentality, stick largely to battle scenes and give this a better title and it could have been really good. Lyudmila Pavlichenko deserves far better than the actual finished product.
Fascinating subject: the woman who was one of the most successful snipers in history and centred around one of the most heroic defensive battles of WW2. Should be an easy enough task to make this into a good movie, right?
Wrong. Somehow the writers and director Sergey Mokritskiy turn this story into something very lame. The battle scenes are reasonably well done, and quite realistic, but it's the rest that messes this up. Romantic sub-plots, the Eleanor Roosevelt angle, the political stuff: they all seem half-baked and just filler.
Add in some atrocious supporting performances - the "American" journalists (most seemed to be Russian pretending to be American) are particularly bad. Yuliya Peresild puts in a solid performance in the lead role though.
Even the title is badly done - the Battle for Sevastopol actually takes up less than half of the movie and is not the main focus of the film, Lyudmila Pavlichenko is.
Concentrate on Lyudmila Pavlichenko, leave out all the half-baked romantic stuff, silly sub-plots and sentimentality, stick largely to battle scenes and give this a better title and it could have been really good. Lyudmila Pavlichenko deserves far better than the actual finished product.