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Thousands of green military cadets march into the firing line as the Red Army resists Nazi invasion in Vadim Shmelyov’s cliche-ridden historical epic

Here’s a tale of chest-puffing courage and one-dimensional heroism from Russia during the second world war: an old-fashioned patriotic epic with slo-mo action scenes, intestines spewed on the battlefield and a soppy sentimental romance. It is based on real events in 1941, when more than 3,000 young military cadets were sent to the frontline to defend Moscow. Their mission was to buy time, holding off the Germans for five or six days until reinforcements arrived. Only a third survived.

The cadets are still three months from graduating military school when the order comes to mobilise. These lads are future Red Army commanders, the brightest and the best. Two of them, best friends Lavrov (Artyom Gubin) and Shemyakin (Igor Yudin), are in love with the same girl, trainee...

"Today is our turn! We must persevere!" Signature Ent. in the UK has debuted an official UK trailer with English subtitles for yet another Russian war action movie (they really love making these) titled The Final Stand, formerly known as The Last Frontier. Described as "1917 meets Hacksaw Ridge," it is a "gripping and hard hitting WWII thriller based on the unbelievable true story of the heroic military stand outside Moscow in 1941." The film tells the story of the Podolsk cadets' heroic stand outside Moscow in October 1941. They were sent to the Ilyinsky line of defense, fighting alongside units from the Soviet 43rd Army to hold back the German advance until reinforcements arrived. Hopelessly outnumbered, young men in their teens laid down their lives in a battle lasting almost two weeks to obstruct the far superior German forces advancing towards Moscow. Starring Aleksey Bardukov, Evgeniy Dyatlov, Sergey Bezrukov, Lubov Konstantinova,...