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Reviews3
cmdrdan2001's rating
American war movie fans might be bored out of their skulls by this movie, but that boredom is born of ignorance. Guerrilla suppression operations are always like that. Sit around and wait, get some hookers, get drunk at the base, wheel and deal with the businessman, kick a prisoner around, cover up the killing of the street merchant by the green private. Then, boom, there goes two fuel trucks, and for 10 minutes a small-arms battle with one high-caliber machine gun. Then wait for brass to plan a way to knock out their stronghold, and then end up killing a few civilians in the process of doing it. If reality doesn't work for Western viewers, there's always Top Gun or Rambo (Top Gun realistic? nope)
The best part of Afganskiy Izlom's realism was the way all the planes dropped flares like confetti. They had to do that because Carter and Reagan gave the Mujahedin so many missiles. Also, the wave of Mi-24's was excellent, a better helo attack even than Apocalypse now. The sight of their missiles dropping and shooting was a scene of impending "death from above" for whoever they were aimed at.
It's funny how the Soviets were able to make an honest Afghanistan movie within a year after their departure, but it took the US six years. Afganskiy Izlom is just as real if you apply it to NATO's occupation too. Someone will always pick up the gun and shoot you cause they care more about the land. It's a movie Westerners should watch. Unfortunately I don't think anyone has ever made English subtitles; I might have to make some.
The best part of Afganskiy Izlom's realism was the way all the planes dropped flares like confetti. They had to do that because Carter and Reagan gave the Mujahedin so many missiles. Also, the wave of Mi-24's was excellent, a better helo attack even than Apocalypse now. The sight of their missiles dropping and shooting was a scene of impending "death from above" for whoever they were aimed at.
It's funny how the Soviets were able to make an honest Afghanistan movie within a year after their departure, but it took the US six years. Afganskiy Izlom is just as real if you apply it to NATO's occupation too. Someone will always pick up the gun and shoot you cause they care more about the land. It's a movie Westerners should watch. Unfortunately I don't think anyone has ever made English subtitles; I might have to make some.
I remember all the press calling this the Russian Rambo back in the '80's and now that I've seen it, it's obvious they never saw it. Even if they had spoken a word of Russian, which they probably didn't.
For starters, Solo Voyage doesn't even remotely take itself seriously. It was intentionally "bad" like Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, and it works: it's freaking hilarious. Without a doubt, it's not a copy of American superwarrior movies, its a parody.
The first 10 minutes are so "bad" that, if it were a serious movie, the whole audience would just go home immediately. Every bit of English dialogue is immediately translated by the narrator, and all the dialogue is in English for those first 10 minutes. The CIA agents and their capitalist bosses discuss their evil plan over a game of golf. Major Jack's flashbacks are a short montage of images that are at first violent-looking but at the end are as ordinary as pictures of people eating food. It's always exactly the same flashback too.
The film skillfully adapts American stereotypes to the super-villain role. CIA agents, rich golfers, insane Vietnam vets and... a young couple on a yacht. Not just on a yacht, in fact - they're seeking treasure too, for extra greed. The missile control center on the island base is just plain nuts: a fixed neon picture of the island, and a line of fixed LED lights up to a neon picture of a ship, and a line of off-course lights ending in a ... sailing yacht! It resembles nothing more than a diagram on a Lite-Brite from the '70's. Whoever designed it must have known months in advance that the missile would be fired at a ship and go astray and hit a sailboat.
The American accents being done right is another mockery. But the dialogue was done wrong in other ways as a lampoon. Often the Americans would talk in short bursts of a few words, pausing constantly to let the narrator catch up with them. On occasion they would talk slower than any American has probably ever talked. Check out the missile control officers, for example, when they prepare to launch. When the yachter meets the Russians, he says "yeah, I'm a capitalist." What American ever says that? It's a direct spoof of the Russian always saying "I am Soviet Communist." After the yachter's wife is killed and he finally realizes the Russians didn't do it, he joins up with the Marines with one motive: revenge. He's there in all the fighting, but once it ends, the film forgets all about him.
Enough about the Americans... a superwarrior movie is about the fighting, right? Well the Russians do some fighting all right, every bit of it funny and impossible. When they first land on the island, the Americans surround them and have them dead to rights. Just like Hollywood, they first drop their good weapons (assault rifles) and then suddenly fight their way out of it with knives. When they find their way into the hidden missile base, they run into a prone machine gunner in a hallway. One of the Marines trips the American yachtsman and they fire from a half-prone position, which in reality would be right in the path of the bullets. Tha naval battle involves the fantasy of anti-ballistic missiles actually working reliably.
The main hero is a spoof of Rambo too. He remarks about muzhestvennaya rabota after the battle, but he's no tough guy. He's a skinny 50-year-old with gray hair and he's nice to his men and to the American civilians too. He looks like a guy you'd see managing a small grocery store or owning an antique shop.
The articles I read about Solo Voyage mentioned the hero's death as a sign the Soviets had yet to learn about sequels. The media just didn't get it: a spoof doesn't need a sequel. In fact, killing the hero is just another lampoon of Hollywood's inability to kill the hero. They thought the USSR was copying them when in fact it was mocking them.
For starters, Solo Voyage doesn't even remotely take itself seriously. It was intentionally "bad" like Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, and it works: it's freaking hilarious. Without a doubt, it's not a copy of American superwarrior movies, its a parody.
The first 10 minutes are so "bad" that, if it were a serious movie, the whole audience would just go home immediately. Every bit of English dialogue is immediately translated by the narrator, and all the dialogue is in English for those first 10 minutes. The CIA agents and their capitalist bosses discuss their evil plan over a game of golf. Major Jack's flashbacks are a short montage of images that are at first violent-looking but at the end are as ordinary as pictures of people eating food. It's always exactly the same flashback too.
The film skillfully adapts American stereotypes to the super-villain role. CIA agents, rich golfers, insane Vietnam vets and... a young couple on a yacht. Not just on a yacht, in fact - they're seeking treasure too, for extra greed. The missile control center on the island base is just plain nuts: a fixed neon picture of the island, and a line of fixed LED lights up to a neon picture of a ship, and a line of off-course lights ending in a ... sailing yacht! It resembles nothing more than a diagram on a Lite-Brite from the '70's. Whoever designed it must have known months in advance that the missile would be fired at a ship and go astray and hit a sailboat.
The American accents being done right is another mockery. But the dialogue was done wrong in other ways as a lampoon. Often the Americans would talk in short bursts of a few words, pausing constantly to let the narrator catch up with them. On occasion they would talk slower than any American has probably ever talked. Check out the missile control officers, for example, when they prepare to launch. When the yachter meets the Russians, he says "yeah, I'm a capitalist." What American ever says that? It's a direct spoof of the Russian always saying "I am Soviet Communist." After the yachter's wife is killed and he finally realizes the Russians didn't do it, he joins up with the Marines with one motive: revenge. He's there in all the fighting, but once it ends, the film forgets all about him.
Enough about the Americans... a superwarrior movie is about the fighting, right? Well the Russians do some fighting all right, every bit of it funny and impossible. When they first land on the island, the Americans surround them and have them dead to rights. Just like Hollywood, they first drop their good weapons (assault rifles) and then suddenly fight their way out of it with knives. When they find their way into the hidden missile base, they run into a prone machine gunner in a hallway. One of the Marines trips the American yachtsman and they fire from a half-prone position, which in reality would be right in the path of the bullets. Tha naval battle involves the fantasy of anti-ballistic missiles actually working reliably.
The main hero is a spoof of Rambo too. He remarks about muzhestvennaya rabota after the battle, but he's no tough guy. He's a skinny 50-year-old with gray hair and he's nice to his men and to the American civilians too. He looks like a guy you'd see managing a small grocery store or owning an antique shop.
The articles I read about Solo Voyage mentioned the hero's death as a sign the Soviets had yet to learn about sequels. The media just didn't get it: a spoof doesn't need a sequel. In fact, killing the hero is just another lampoon of Hollywood's inability to kill the hero. They thought the USSR was copying them when in fact it was mocking them.
