9th Company

A good war movie.

The message seems a bit repetitive, like "war is bad" and "the soldiers suffer a lot of untold trauma", which are themes already deeply explored by Hollywood (also "combat in Afghanistan is tough"), but as a part of russian history, it sometimes adds novelty.

[spoiler] In the very beggining, most of the soldiers are enlisting for several reasons other than patriotic duty, and very few are truly convinced of the necessity of invading the country. [/spoiler] That in itself would be great for character development, but I saw none of it. Instead, all of the company fades into "that russian soldier", and most of the times I could not differentiate who's who. [spoiler] Even at the death scenes, I couldn't keep track of who's alive and returning home [/spoiler].

I guess that makes sense for a military comunist mission. Any military company, has this characteristic of "blending" the soldiers, in order from them acting as one and marching to an objective, rigidly following orders. In the american military, there is a more individualized approach, as it values more diverse tactics, due to its broad umbrella of influence, and even then, is still a very "dehumanized" front. Having a soviet military company being represented as very similar may be better for historic accuracy, but unfortunately it doesn't make a better movie.

Still, even then, it has some great visuals, good acting and very exciting action. From the characters I could tell apart, there are both fun and heartbreaking stories being told.