Il testimone

Cheapest form of Russian propaganda. My eyes are bleeding from seeing this. There was no effort put into this whatsoever. You are better off watching Russia Today. The casting was probably done at a job fair and actors were so desperate to get a hotdog and a coffee from a coffee machine - that was their payment for the role. Filming was done on Samsung galaxy. Script doesn't make any more sense than Russian hate shows. Hollywood is far better with subtle soft propaganda. This movie sucks so bad that it makes war in Ukraine absolutely clear - Russia started the war, Russia is killing and kidnapping Ukrainian children, Russia did Butcha and Irpen, Russia is bombing peaceful cities. Putin will be held accountable. Ukraine will win.

Firstly, I'm a military movie buff and don't care about politics if the film is done correctly.

Seeing the low review score for this, I felt that I needed to watch it and give it a fair shake.

Each country produces their own propaganda movies & that is to be expected. After watching all of the pro-Ukrainian movies, I wanted to see one from the Russian viewpoint and this movie delivered that.

For the movie, I was only able to locate a very rough copy, so I can't comment on the video quality.

The acting is fine and anyone who had seen the actual "real" videos on LiveLeak coming out of the Ukraine from 2014 will be familiar with some of the subject matter.

It's totally pro-Russian (as expected) with some Holocaust vibes thrown in and of course anyone pro-Ukrainian will object to and downvote it.

As with any conflict/war, atrocities are committed by both sides; no one comes out completely clean and no one will ever know the truth, except those who were there.

Overall, it's a decent film and worth a watch, if you can find it.

This abomination must be given a rating of 0(zero), or just in case of such awful poorly made flicks, this is to be awarded even -100 (minus hundred).

This is so poor, so foolishly shallow, badly executed, so lop-sided and so biased. This is a shameful example of Putin's propagda that does not deserve to be watched bit only mocked at, ridiculed, traduced and then discarded for ever.

War cannot be excused and no film ever would serve as any sorry attempt of war crimes.

This flick will be forgotten, it already is a huge flop even in Russia, and such films must be shown to criminals as examples of terrible horrid propaganda efforts to whiten a black wolf.

Watch it at your own will, but remember, this is a lie, black and blatant fascist lie at its worst with all the traces of poor plot, awful script, bad actors and terrible dialog.

That quote from HBOs Chernobyl series can be applied wonderfully at this movie. Full of made up lies, this movie is trying to give the unprovoked and senseless invasion of Ukraine by Russia a purpose by showing us a fictional "Ukrainian" village where a fictional "genocide" was supposed to have happened. None of this is true of course, but even besides that you can see that the movie was filmed in a way to bring it out as soon as possible with little to no care and craftmanship whatsoever. The actors are bad, the plot as I pointed out is completely fictional, the soundtrack is inappropriate. By the way, when the US invaded Iraq I dont remember Hollywood producing movies which spread lies about Saddam Husseins weapons of mass destruction. The fact that Russia is in need of such cheap propaganda movies should tell you everything about this unjustifiable war.

Anyway, 250.000 Russians already had to pay their debt to the truth, more to come. This movie wont change anything about that fact.

Awful film, based on lies and used as propaganda tool. No cinematic value other the an a historical document to see how war time states use film as a weapon of mass disinformation.

Luckily Russian cinema peaked many years ago, and now we are left with a poor infantile excuse for a blockbuster victim to hero story. It's simply a grotesque imitation of western cinema, even when using all the tools and knowledge available, but with no ability to understand or relate to them - you get this incredibly pitiful shadow play on a wall.

This is not cinema, rather it's a marketing video reel that should only be shown in history lessons as an example for misuse and abuse of art forms in the pursuit of rewriting history during war time.