I watched the new Russian film “Dugout” (2024). It was removed for Victory Day, but at what cost?

A new film “Dugout” has been released in Russia.

The director of the film is Mark Gorobets, known for “The Yellow Eye of the Tiger,” “The Shadow Behind” and many other projects.

However, in the case of a new product, what is more interesting is not even the director, but screenwriter Ilya Kulikov, which is the subject of such films and TV series as “Dyatlov Pass”, “Chernobyl: Exclusion Zone”, “Karpov” and “Capercaillie”. In general, he inspired hope before going to the Dugout.

We have already gone to the cinema, appreciated the new Russian military science fiction film and are sharing our impressions. Surprisingly, everything is not as bad as it seemed at first.

Not exactly standard science fiction

What is the movie about: Sergey is an emergency doctor. His best friend, a German named Paul, used to drive a car to Russia from Germany – that’s how they met and got to know each other. Paul also has another hobby – antiques. He is a “black digger”: he looks for German awards, helmets, weapons on the battlefields and sells them for crazy money.

One day, during excavations, friends find a buried dugout, which takes them back to 1941 and brings them face to face with the war – with the soldiers whose names they saw on the graves in the morning. Realizing that they are all doomed, Sergei and Paul make opposite decisions that radically change their lives.

It’s been quite common lately to see characters controlling time in films. Just look at “One Hundred Years Ahead” (our review), released a week ago, “Time Between Us” or three seasons of “Darkness”. The novelty stands out against their background in that time travel here leads to greater priming and also defines the extremely controversial heroes of the Great Patriotic War – a topic close to the domestic viewer.

“We are from the future” was a picture with a similar theme, but I did not compare them, since they are different films. And Kozlovsky is not here (the one who still knew how to act in films, and not mumble under his breath). So it’s probably for the best.

Of course, the topic is not new, and viewers have already seen similar ones in “Frontier” and “Fog”. But why do I say that “Dugout” is different from the above? Here, more emphasis is placed not on lamps and their problems, but on tightening devices. Of course, in a Russian film it is impossible to make a deal without copying The main ideas of “We are from the future”, passing the black diggers in the 41st and 44th matches. And even the method of teleportation is the same – in fact, through an abandoned dugout.

Only in the film of 2024 you don’t feel the gain in the past. It feels as if the heroes were transported to a parallel universe, where there are no usual banners, posters in support of communism and modern ideology in general. But the film is being promoted as a release for Victory Day, where all this paraphernalia is being watched.

One of the central authors is trying to start a war, friendship and emotional assistants to officials. It just turns out badly both with the topic and with the other. The final film generally raises many questions about the actions of the German played by Daniel Littau.

The development of the story is associated with the abundance of a large number of minor characters who were not given any attention at all. Of course they lead to more interference disposable characters, because there are too many deaths in a 2-hour time frame. But there are so many events that you simply don’t keep track of them.

The scale let us down

The advertising campaign relied heavily on huge battalions and spectacular direction. And yes, these elements are present in the new product.

Cameraman Andrei Gurkin periodically catches such shots that you breathtaking.at some moments you literally feel a sense of your own closeness and danger. Either a bullet will whistle overhead, then a neighboring trench will be blown up, the camera will fly out of it with lightning speed, and so on. At such moments, the film really wants to add a few points to a competent production.

But even with good moments, viewers also encounter the favorite techniques of Russian directors, who seem to be following the path of the “king of slowmo” Zack Snyder. This kind of thing makes you sick, and after 2 hours these computer drawings get terribly boring. The graphs in the film, surprisingly, turned out to be very large, and I cannot name them reliably in all cases.

Did not impress

“Dugout” practically failed to move the viewer into the atmosphere of the Second World War. Rare elements of the film remind us that, in fact, the most important war for our country is going on around us.

The images of the main characters somehow did not combine in the early films, and they did not begin to combine much closer to the finale, although the authors sincerely tried to bring them closer together. The schedules turned out to be longer than shooting outdoors, and the protracted battles and the real “hero” (war) did not catch my attention.

The result is a passable movie that, in general, can be shared over time. But it’s better to go to something else.