Pros. The plot is beautiful – a real madness for the sake of a beautiful story and picture! That's what a great fighter should be, and it turned out! The story was invented to reflect the valor of heroes in epaulettes, the cruelty of hired bandits, the defenselessness of civilians, and to present all this in the form of a cheerful action with picture poses and typical Western scenes. Not without a personal factor, the hero turned out not to be a cardboard superman, but a “Russian Vanka of a healthy person” in the best form, with his soul, principles and humor.
The presence of idiot girls is no less beautiful. They have become a real highlight of this story.
The director skillfully fit into the total time of 1 hour 19 minutes, and without credits and even less. As a result, almost without long scenes, all the action is in constant dynamics and does not tire. The picture is full of sharp moments, so it is really interesting to watch.
It seems that the production clearly lacked a competent consultant from among the former Afghan soldiers: combat guards, fights, shooting and so on. But still, in general, everything was done quite at the level of any cult Hollywood action movie, and taking into account the specific plot, even enchanting explosions and other dust in the eyes were not needed - cheap and angry! I am already silent about the ubiquitous Hollywood cranberries, from which there is also no vomiting.
Pankratov-Black in the title role turned out very good – 100% Pankratov-Black! The role seemed to be specially prescribed for him, gave the actor to fully show his talents, for which we love him so much.
A little funny, but the icing on the cake in the plot even wrapped a love story. Nice and easy, I liked it.
Special. It is not clear why the fate of the senior sergeant was decided so strangely: in his face betrayal was reconciled with honor, and this was presented as the norm. Resenting this warrant officer is adequate, but still it is a blow to the ideology and image of the army. The scoundrels are an integral part of the art of cinema, which has always been castigated in healthy Soviet cinema, and, as a rule, they received a decent recompense for their merits. Here the condemnation occurred only at the level of silent protest on behalf of the main character. In 1991, when the film was released, the army was already pretty feverish, so the shown is partly not only the sanguine truth of life, but also the designation of a certain trend in the cinema to douse the crap of all saints. The dislike of the main character for the CPSU, which remained only in the form of some silence, is from the same opera. (One might argue that these were personal accounts with the CPSU, but then what did the CPSU have to do with it?) The whole line in the film is like a fig in the pocket, stupid and merciless.
Conclusion. It turned out a great mixture of action and Western, but in the Russian version. Fans of militants on military topics can safely look. I saw the movie for the first time, I really liked it. Pankratov-Black perfectly fit into an uncharacteristic plot for his type.