the audience applauded

Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This film is not just another banal heroic epic, which is typical for Russia in terms of WWII movies. No, this work of Mr. Ptashuk is a great, impeccable and fresh one. It has some soft humor, excellent suspense, marvelous plot and very strong play of all the actors. The story takes place in 1944, when the Soviet Army has liberated all of the Russian territory and reached the Polish border. The regular army is busy with its movements and relocations, and nearby, the woods of Belarus / Lithuania / Poland, the Soviet intelligence service called Smersh - Death To Spies, is tracking down the well-organized fascist group consisting of Russians - the traitors who had chosen to serve the Nazi Germany. This secret group is extremely sly, cautious, and does some great spying work. So, the Smersh group has to catch them as soon as possible, being under threat of death penalty if their work is not a success. The main hero, played by Evgeni Mironov, is a cool, calm and collected professional, he know his work well and he follows the spy gang all the time, till he and his aids meet the enemies on a wood meadow. The main spy, played excellently by Aleksandr Baluyev, a merciless, cruel criminal, who is a real master too. Their tense dialog is a central part of the whole film and the unexpected final is a real success. This is a rare case of a really great, smart and very thrilling war movie. Recommended!

what you must consider before commenting on this movie is that it is based on a great book by Vladimir Bogomolov, which is quite long and detailed. As a result, making a movie based on that book has been a very difficult task. I recommend reading the book before watching the movie so as to understand what is going on, because the movie sort of 'dives in'. If you do not feel like reading the book, then at least spend half an hour reading about Belarus in 1944 and the Smersh, which translates from Russian as 'Death to Spies'. I you have no idea what the front was like in 1944 and have not read the book, you could be somewhat disappointed with the movie.

This is one of the best modern war films I have ever seen. Surprisingly, it was made in 2001, which wasn't the best time to make films related to World War II. The actors were brilliant, especially during the standoff scene when the spies and the soldiers "bumped" into each other in the forest. I believe this film correctly portrays the events of WW2 and the actions of soldiers from the red army's special forces.The events of that war made everyone do extraordinary things which now may seem as unlikely, but people have to remember that it wasn't just about winning, but survival.

I like war history and like to watch war movies. This one, in my opinion, is nothing more that a very unbelivable story about supermen from special secret police forces which seek an enemy intelligence group in Belorussian forests. The movie is full of historcal and technical mistakes, actors' works except of one are poor, the one is Chief of Food Depot which is absolutely perfect but only about one minute long. All action goes about three houses, two glades and one truck. For me the most puzzle is where the declared something about 40-million US $ budget for the movie was spent?