grantss Good WW2 drama.Based on the German attack on the Brest fortress during the opening days of the German-Russian theatre of WW2. Very gritty: the impact of war on people, esp civilians, is palpable. Also demonstrates how war shatters lives and relationships.Not perfect though: treatment of the Germans is a bit heavy-handed and one-dimensional. They're all shown to be brutal, unthinking thugs, while the Russians - of course, being a Russian film - are perfect human beings. Does have a ring of propaganda to it.Good performances all round.

richard6 Produced in honour of the Red Army soldiers defending the USSR Western borders, Fortress of War recounts historical events combined with fictitious chronicles surrounding the June 1941 siege of the Brest Fortress in Sothern Belorussia against the invading Wehrmacht Army Group Centre forces in the opening stages of Operation Barbarossa.This historical event is creatively accompanied by reminiscing narration from an orphaned 15-year old boy named Sasha Akimov. His narration ties together three main defensive stages led by real life Soviet war heroes centered on the resistance zones holding out against the protracted German siege. One location is headed by regiment commander Pyotr Gavrilov (Aleksandr Koshunov) another by the political commissar Yefim Fomin (Pavel Derevyanko) and lastly the head of the 9th frontier outpost, Andrey Mitrofanovich Kizhevatov (Andrey Merzlikin). All three have a different story to tell. The film begins in an archetypal peaceful, though nervous per-war Belorussia in the summer of 1941. The heavy military presence contained in Brest, notably its historic 19th century fortress, explains the current political situation in the country following the Nazi conquest of Western Europe and the Politburo's rightful suspicions of Hitler next intended target. The focal characters are simultaneously introduced intermediately around Sasha's observational narration. The ensuing bombardment by Wehrmacht artillery and brutal assault comes with-out warning and is unleashed with fuming panic. The film thus continues along a direction of separate combat charges and defensive manoeuvres. These numerous skirmishes and scuffles between the two opposing armies are effective, edgy and well-staged. All the combat scenes are extremely effective and mastered by the production team using special effects and pyrotechnics to their full advantage. Because the film was produced by the Belarusfilm Company and in truth many of the cast and crew either lived or parents lived through the nightmare of the Wehrmacht invasion and resultant onslaught of the population, the accuracy to detail is visually authentic and at no point attempts to introvert away from the brutality faced by their ancestral soldiers or civilians during these troubled times. Yet, it does not go unnoticeable that this film contains blotches of patriotism and benevolence. The narration shifts between characters and their dilemmas in the three separate defensive locations at the beginning may appear to be unclear and confusing. Nevertheless, through skillful editing and directing as the film moves along at a steady peace the separate stories begin to coalesce into one and by no means are a distraction.In summary, Fortress of War is a first-rate factual dramatised war movie which subjects its audience to the brave climatic struggle for survival and once again is another example of the evolving historical films from the Counties brutalised by ideology fuelled hatred and genocide that was the Second World War.

Londonx54 I came across this film and got a little excited as the reviews were good and I am fascinated by the war on the eastern front. Unfortunately I had to turn the film off after an hour! The combat scenes are chronically unrealistic in my opinion. I know that Russian tactics were meant to be pretty basic at the beginning of the war but every scene seems to involve an infantry charge across open ground. The last scene, before I stopped the film, involved the Russians jumping up from cover and running a good 100 metres at the Germans who also seemed quite happy strolling around in the open whilst under fire. This feels more like 1812 than 1941.In an air raid at the beginning the film persistently showed mini-explosions occurring 6 feet away from the actors. What are these micro-bombs that only seem to happen in film world? They don't seem to do anything so I'm not sure why the Luftwaffe bother to drop them.

Fatherandersonthepaladin Well, first off, I found out about this while chatting with fellow Russian rifle collectors (they mentioned the movie had excellent scenes with lots of interesting weapons). They pointed me to youtube, and in the first 2 minutes, I was hooked.The first 15 minutes are background story (which really fleshes out the movie and helps you see the actors as human beings). Then the fighting begins, and it truly doesn't let up from there. There are several scenes of intense violence (it's a war movie, what do you expect?), but overall they were very tastefully done (this isn't SAW VI after all).Now, I did have a few complaints, such as extremely poorly designed replica MG34's (they look like a hybrid between a '34 and an MG42), but overall this movie is the best war movie I've seen in recent years, and it's definitely a nice change of pace from watching Jude Law acting like a cardboard standee of himself in Enemy at the Gates.