Directors Kim Druzhinin, Andrey Shalopa
Starring Aleksandr Ustyugov, Vitaliy Kovalenko and Aleksey Morozov
Score 5/6

USSR, Late November, 1941. Based on the account by reporter Vasiliy Koroteev that appeared in the Red Army’s newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, shortly after the battle, this is the story of Panifilov’s Twenty-Eight, a group of twenty-eight soldiers of the Red Army’s 316th Rifle Division, under the command of General Ivan Panfilov, that stopped the advance on Moscow of a column of fifty-four Nazi tanks of the 11th Panzer Division for several days.

I kind of stumbled across this one. For those of you who have wondered, yes there are streaming services that don’t offer a monthly subscription, the catch is you better not be after a current release and be willing to deal with more than a few ads.
If you do the slightest amount of research about Panfilov’s Twenty-Eight you will find that the events portrayed in the movie “does not correspond with reality”. The takeaway from this? That sometimes you really shouldn’t let things like the truth get in the way of a good story because with a movie that’s all that matters. Now, I would also like to note that I have seen a Russian war movie (that I haven’t watched yet) being dismissed as being propaganda, I would just like to take a moment to throw a stone at that particular review and say every single war movie in the history of cinema that has ever been released and ever will be released is propaganda.
I was completely unfamiliar with anybody who was involved with this movie and judging by how Panfilov’s was shot I hope that I come across more movies directed by Kim Druzhinin and Andrey Shalopa. Now what struck me about this movie was that it did not come across as being a big loud action movie and instead it lent into the patriotism of the story considering that the tagline of the movie is ‘Russia is vast, yet there is nowhere to retreat! Moscow is behind us!’. I certainly wasn’t expecting to rewind any moments dialogue, which I did a couple for a discussion about the Motherland and the Fatherland.

The final shot of the movie, the statue memorial. Perhaps, it was a little cheesy to end the movie that way. But dam with that music, the filmmakers worked on those patriotic feelings.