7.0
A story about bravery, self-sacrifice and human dignity put on trial by the merciless power of nature. A young pilot is fired from military air force after disobeying an absurd order. He gets a job as a co-pilot with a civil airline. Being brutally honest and direct, he is not on best terms with his new colleagues. During a flight to Asia his crew receives a distress message from a volcanic island and makes a decision to attempt a rescue mission. Will it be a success? Will they survive the disaster? They have a single chance to find that out: by being a team and sticking up for one another.
Danila Kozlovsky
Alexey Gushchin
Vladimir Mashkov
Leonid Zinchenko
Agnė Grudytė
Alexandra
Sergey Shakurov
Nikolai Gushchin
Sergey Romanovich
Valera
Elena Yakovleva
Irina
Sergey Gazarov
Shestakov
Sergey Kempo
Steward Andrey
Katerina Shpitsa
Vika
Irina Pegova
Lena
Alesya Guzko
Nastya
Ivan Egorov
Seryozha
Anton Tuzikov
Tatyana Novik
Passazhirka
Mitya Makhonin
tourist
Sesil Sverdlova
невеста
Ekaterina Vinogradova
Mariya, passazhir
Aleksandra Yakovleva-Aasmyae
Tamara Igorevna, aviation official
Alena Babenko
Margarita
Irina Lachina
lawyer
Vyacheslav Razbegaev
Viktor Nikolaevich
Vladimir Yaglych
Sinitsin
Vasiliy Mishchenko
Smirnov
Dmitriy Zolotukhin
Petritskiy
Ivan Agapov
accountant
Olga Litvinova
Natasha
Irina Nizina
doctor
Nina Usatova
fund employee
Sergey Serov
general
Dmitriy Mulyar
commander
Anton Pampushnyy
intern
Oleg Fomin
examiner
Nina Grebeshkova
buisness class passenger
Eugenia Khrapovitskaya
flight attendant
Mikhail Krylov
miner
Artyom Semakin
volcanologist
Yang Ge
Lu
Din Fan
Chen
Artyom Fadeev
Ludmila Kurepova
Aleksey Gnilitskiy
Sergey Rublev
Grigoriy Perel
Mikhail Anisimov
Alexandr Gokh
Vera Ivanova
Irina Kalinina
Vadim Michman
Tatyana Novik
Daniil Soldatov
Alexandr Tsema
Nikolay Lebedev
Stanislav Belyaev
Aleksandr Mitta
Director, Writer
Nikolay Lebedev
Co-Writer
Yuri Korotkov
Co-Writer
Aleksey Onishchenko
Screenplay
Nikolai Kulikov
Writer
Tikhon Kornev
December 24, 2016
7
**There comes a time for everyone to prove their worth.**
The Russian disaster film, partially inspired by the 1980 film of the same name. One of the film to do good business outside the domestic market, particularly in Japan and China. So there are lots of great stuff about it, from filmmaking to the box office and I enjoyed watching it, but did not like it as overwhelmingly. That does not mean it is overrated, but I liked it less, that's all.
It is set to tell the story of life of pilots, their personal life, such as trouble with romance, family issues and tackling obstacles in their professional line, especially when they were needed the most. So in the first half it was all about drama, an introduction to what comes in the latter half. A pilot father struggling with his troublesome teen son. And another pilot who got fired from the Russian air force, now in a private airline where he meets a woman, but having a difficulty to stabilise the relationship.
When the second half begins, the narration completely flips. Like it is a different film, particularly brings attention to the action- adventure fans. Fate brings them all together in a plane and they decide to evacuate people who are stranded in an airport near the Alaskan region island when it was hit by volcanoes and a series of earth quicks. The remaining is to reveal the heroic acts by the pilots and Co.
> "He's a pilot gifted by God. My hands are only hands, his hands are wings. I have never seen anyone like this before."
Visually, it was good. All those crucial parts of the graphics were rendered neatly. Even the stunt sequences were composed so well. But some of them were unrealistic. That's very common, even for a Hollywood film, so I think it's not a big deal. My issue was the film length. It was over two hours long and I did not like much of the first part. The next half was quite good, because of its thriller. When I thought it's over, the narration surprised with another adventure followed by in the final segment.
Like usual this Russian film too has been built on the corruption plot. Not the whole film, but in the initial stage. The influenced people who target the honest employees for going against them. Really a good theme, but when the disaster part takes over, everything will be forgotten. Then it gets edgy, so that's where you will forget the time and sit straight to enjoy it. If you had seen plenty of similar heroic films, then it will be another okayish type. If not, you will have a good time with it.
It took an hour to get into action-adventure, but in those times, it failed to build the romance part to its best. I'm disappointed with that since it had fine actors and situation to build on. The Father- son duo looked much better. In the second half, nothing of these sentimentally appealed as it should have been, not for me. Because it became more a heroic type with sacrifice than family and relationship influence. So overall it's a good attempt, a nice film for the weekend watch.
_7/10_