18 | 111min | Adventure, Drama, War
Director: Kevin Reynolds
Writers: William Mastrosimone (screenplay), William Mastrosimone (play)
Stars: George Dzundza, Jason Patric, Steven Bauer
A Soviet tank crew commit atrocities in an Afghan village during the Russian-Afghan war of the late 1980s. However, they proceed to get lost in a valley the rebels know well, and encounter a group of vengeance-seeking Mujaheddin on their tracks. One of the Soviet troops ends up being left behind by the rest - left directly to the Afghan warriors. But he knows one word of their language...
Although one must keep in mind that this is, after all, a US take on a disastrous Soviet foreign policy failure (so one senses a certain degree of relish in the defeat and perhaps an overstating of the wartime atrocities the Soviets did commit - how much can you trust it?), and would be analogous to, say, a Soviet movie about American defeats in Vietnam, it is still a good movie. Well-made and gripping. Shocking, too. I don't know why it had so little commercial success... Either way, a genuinely good war flick.
Powerful.
