MovieChat Forums > Tali-Ihantala 1944 (2007) Discussion > Saw this on sunday, my review

Saw this on sunday, my review

posted 16 years ago by janne-ojaniemi
19 replies | jump to latest

I went to see this movie last sunday with my father-in-law and my wifes grandfather (who kept reminding us that "I wasn't actually in Tali-Ihantala, I was in Suursaari fighting the Germans..."). We thought that the movie would be an interesting experience for him (the grandfather that is), and it seemed to have done the trick.

Looking at the "professional" reviews this movie has received in newspapers and the like, it seems that the movie has some flaws. The characters are shallow. Consider yourself lucky if you can remember the names of the people. And the reviews are 100% true in that regard. There's zero character-development. There's no real plot in the movie either. It just tells the story of a battle. The plot was written over 60 years ago by actual events. It's like the guys making the movie thought "why do we need to have a story about brothers in war, or love-triangles or some other crap like that? We have the biggest battle in Nordic history, that should be enough story for everyone".

Also, if you want to ogle at some pretty ladies, this movie is not for you. I don't think I saw ANY women in the movie. Not one. If you felt that the sex-scene in "Enemy at The Gates" was cheesy and tacked on, you can breath a sigh of relief: there's no sex here. Just warfare. This movie does not try to sell itself with sex.

So, so far we have no tits & ass, no plot, paper-thin characters etc. etc... And you know what? I don't care.

In many ways, this isn't a movie. It's a 2-hour documentary that's masquerading as a movie. I have read some literature on Tali-Ihantala, and many of the scenes in the movie are 1:1 accurate with what actually happened. A movie based on actual events that does NOT distort history? That seems to be quite rare these days.

I think that this movie is the most action-packed movie in the existence. There are few peaceful scenes that last for few minutes here and there, but other than that, it's warfare in different forms. Tanks vs. tanks, tanks. vs. infantry (was that an ISU-152 I saw in one scene? I believe it was!), infantry vs. infantry and artillery vs. everyone.

This movie has a budget of few million euros. Similar Hollywood-productions have budgets that are about 10-20 times bigger. And looking at the end-results, I can't help but wonder "what are they doing with all that money?". This movie can easily battle with the best of them. And what's more, there's LOTS of it. "Saving private Ryan" has great battle-scenes, but it spends lots of time building up the characters (which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your perspective), with handful of battle-scenes here and there. T-I 1944 does not. It focuses on combat. I could say that in "Private Ryan", Tom Hanks is the leading star, but in T-I 1944 the leading star is the battle itself.

My verdict: *****/*****. Just look at it as a semi-documentary, as opposed to traditional movie with characters and character-building.

[–] vake 16 years ago

This movie has a budget of few million euros. Similar Hollywood-productions have budgets that are about 10-20 times bigger. And looking at the end-results, I can't help but wonder "what are they doing with all that money?".

The reason for this is that it is actually that much more expensive to make a Hollywood film than a Finnish one. There was an estimate that Tali-Ihantala 1944 would've cost about 15 times more as a Hollywood film, so roughly around the €50 million mark. You get the cost when you factor in all the different salaries for directors, actors, crew and the whole infrastructure that surrounds the film productions. This is the reason more and more Hollywood productions migrate to Vancouver, Budapest etc.

[–] maxpayne111 16 years ago

This is the review i wanted to hear, thats it is a battle film.

I don't know how im going to wait until summer for the DVD release though.

[–] maxpayne111 16 years ago

It was mentioned here the battle scenes are short

can you comment on this

[–] janne-ojaniemi 16 years ago

I don't think they were short. And in any case, there were lots of them :).

[–] figaro8 16 years ago

Moi Janne and other posters,
I have yet to see the film as I reside abroad, however my parent's liked it, and my father is a veteran, albeit not the battle of Tali-Ihantala.
I did see Mr. Lindman's previous effort, Framom Främsta Linjen, and similar to your review, it was really a semi-documentary of that particular Viipuri battle where my father was, lacking in plotline, and melodrama, the way the films you mentioned include, as well as Rukajärven Tie, with the sex scene in the beginning. Regardless, I look forward to viewing Tali-Ihantala as soon as I am able.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] altunbas-1 16 years ago

as far as I knew, the finnish directors know how to make a good war movie, which is characteristic in Talvisota. I'm expecting this one would be the same. no overused drama, no exagerated rambo-like soldiers defeating whole companies with bare hand, no romanticized scenes. all you can see is fighting men who got any feature of a war,including fear, courage, pain, patience, weaknesses that a normal humanbeing may sense in such case. that's reality selling itself. and unfortunately it isn't in good supply for our present cinema concept, and isn't appeciated enough, either.

so, i am dying to watch this piece as soon as possible, however, i should wait till they release the DVD because I'm living in Turkey.

ps: i searched it through any p2p software but i got none yet. seems it's gonna take forever when i'm able to watch.

[–] Shaolin_Apu 16 years ago

Reino Lehväslaiho gave it a full 10.

The Apple Scruffs Corps, 05
I am the brain and she's the muscle.

[–] hkekalai 16 years ago

You are gonna be disappointed, if you wish this to be new Winter War. This just sucks. Badly. I was so disappointed, that I can hardly describe my feelings about this. :(

[–] janne-ojaniemi 16 years ago

I wasn't disappointed ;). True, as a movie, Talvisota is better. It has characters whose names you can remember and on which you can relate to. It has character-developement and all the markings of a good movie. T-I 1944 is a different beast. Whereas Talvisota and just about all war-movies out there are about people, T-I 1944 is about the events. Some people might hate it because of that, but once you accept the fact that T-I 1944 takes a different approach to the subject-matter than what normal movies do, things become clearer.

A tangible comparison: In "Saving Private Ryan" they spent time building Hanks's character. They told about his background ("I'm a teacher..."). In T-I that does not happen because it has nothing to do with what the movie is about. T-I is not about the people, it's about the battle. And since it was a huge battle, characters are going to be shallow. And that's OK, since the characters are not what this movie is about.

If you loved Winter War because of the battle-scenes, T-I 1944 will deliver, and then some. If you liked Talvisota because of the characters and the story, T-I 1944 will NOT deliver.

Like I said: expect T-I 1944 to be a documentary masquarading as a movie, and you will not be disappointed.

[–] rafu-2 16 years ago

Much much better than I Expected it to be having read the reviews here in Finland. One must keep in mind, however, that the reviewers are young and
lack the knowledge of war history. If you have any knowledge at all about
what was going on then , this is just fine entertainment for two hours.
And much better than Framom .... .

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] joonas1038 16 years ago

I SAW IT EARLY TIME OF THE YEAR...I WOULD IMAGINE MY SELF AS BARBAROSSA 1942
BARBAROSSA FILM
FRANZ MULLER JOONAS LEHTO
HEINRICH GRUBER < SAMULI VAURAMO
FRIEDA GRUBER < JENNI BANERJEE
GALINA IVANOVA < LAURA BIRN
SERGEI TITORENKO < MIKKO LEPPILAMPI

[–] PsykoOps 16 years ago

Didn't like it. The movie made it seem like it was more of stationary war than it really was. The feeling of despair and the fact that we were so close to losing wasn't accurately shown. Also the fact that if it weren't for the luftwaffe we would be speaking russian in here wasn't really shown. Most soviet tanks didn't even make it to the battlefield, if they had we would've had no chance.
8/10 is generous from me considering these points.

[–] Shaolin_Apu 15 years ago

You should have liked it. The battles of Tali and Ihantala were quite stationary as they formed only a small part of the whole long campaign, those being the locations where the steam roller was stopped. The feeling of despair was far from that of the Winter War battles on exactly the same locations. Attribuiting everything to Luftwaffe is ridiculous, they actually destroyed only 1/7 of the total tanks destroyed during the campaign. What does also mean your statement Most soviet tanks didn't even make it to the battlefield, if they had we would've had no chance? - if you cared to go by the arcives of individual regiments, battle accounts, and actual modern historical research about those events you wouldn't present here such nonsense.

The Apple Scruffs Corps, 05
Paulan ja Miran molemmat puolet

[–] PsykoOps 15 years ago

The 'steam roller' wasn't stopped for any considerable period of time. I'm not attributing everything to Luftwaffe but the fact is that they did drop estimated 80% of the ordanance used in the campaign. Not only that they did it with far more accuracy considering they used dive and low level bombing vs. FAF who did only high altitude carpet bombing. Most soviet tanks were destroyed by the Luftwaffe at their staging areas before they attacked and even more importantly much of their fuel supplies were taken out by the Luftwaffe.

[–] Shaolin_Apu 15 years ago

I don't know where you base your facts, maybe you're just overcreditting LW because they had cooler weapons. FAF did attack Soviet tanks with Do-17's as early as June 11 near Valkeasaari, and that wasn't a high altitude mission. The steam roller couldn't have been more stopped as it really was, the 30th Guards lost most of its armor in action that was mostly fought against Finnish troops, artillery and air force.

Play it again Frank, I don't give a damn.

[–] joonas2058932 15 years ago

i like it i have seen it. It was great < specially characters were great

[–] 15 years ago

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