Belyy tigr

'White Tiger' is not your usual war movie concentrating on heroes or horrors of war. It is a rather allegorical tale about the essence of war. I have to say I guess that I went into the movie with the wrong mindset - horror fantasy about tank commander who must face the undestroyable and mysterious enemy tank. As a genre, war and horror don't mix very well, yet I decided to watch this peculiarity. The film was presented as an action-packed horror epic, and so I went into this. The movie starts with a scene that depicts the aftermath of the tank battle where they recover a tank commander who has lost his memory but not his remarkable skills. From there on the film takes sudden turn into the territories of surrealism and mysticism. That itself is never a bad thing, but. . . It quickly became obvious where the director was going with this thing, and although, I did reset my mind very quickly, the film didn't work for me wholly. It felt kind of bland and sterile. Some parts didn't quite add up or match. It wasn't polished enough for war epic neither it wasn't 'artsy' enough to work as allegory. The pacing wasn't off, and there were some brilliantly directed scenes, especially the final standoff. And the appearing of the White Tiger from the mist nearly gave me goosebumps.

Quite an interesting movie with a thought-provoking concept. At least I thought about this movie afterward. If You happen to read this review before watching 'White Tiger' then I recommend you keep the open mind and not expect some usual war hero action epic. That might help. On the other hand, if the movie is truly great, it should catch your attention anyway no matter how prepared you are or in what mood you are.

I might give this movie another shot, although I got a general idea, the execution wasn't anything special. Yet, I can't call this movie either a boring or total waste of time.