Letchik

Ignore the weird ppl leaving bad reviews it doesn't matter that it's a russian film they probably couldn't read anywas. I would suggest this movie I liked it some ppl just have bad taste like 45% of the reviews I saw.

The 105 min runtime felt much longer with the long dragged out and unnecessary scenes. The slow pacing made it even worse. There was very little suspense, or anything that would really make you care to invest watching it. The romance part was cheesy, and the survival part kinda lame. This would've been better off as a documentary, and no more than 60 minutes long. The performances were decent and mostly convincing, but the cinematography was the standout feature, as it was excellent. It's a very generous 6/10 from me.

A refreshingly realistic WW2 shot film, right down to the Russian "Ilyusha" (Ilyushin Il-2) ground attack warplane. The acting throughout was superb.

The ending credits to so many actual Russian WW2 pilots is a sobering and tragic reality of War.

Lest We Forget.

This was made before the invasion of Ukraine, not propaganda, not made by or for Putin. Many Americans don't understand about Russia and WWII. They sustained horrendous losses, something like 20 million, compared to 400,000 for the US. A lot of it was fought in their own country after the Nazis invaded. As a result the war is more deeply embedded in the Russian psyche. US WW-2 movies are about soldiers doing brave things far from home. Russians were defending their own cities where they had homes, family and sweethearts. Pilots were the best of the best, and in the film he flies and Ilyushin-II, an armored close ground support aircraft. It was a great plane, an entirely Soviet design, and they were proud of it. It was ideal for the kind of fighting they were doing. The film shows it getting hit hard repeatedly before it came down, and this was realistic. It was a heavily armored, very tough plane.

Watching "The Pilot" was a pleasure, first because of the quality of the air combat scenes, very well filmed. Another highlight is the editing of the film, which streamlined a predictable story, but which catches our attention. I liked!!