This is Timur Bekmambetov's first film and to be honest it's kind of hard to judge the movie without viewing the original Russian edit. Roger Corman sliced and diced the film up and distributed this mess. It has some mildly interesting ideas and moody lighting but the film is pretty bad.Boring and confusing are two words that come to mind. Still, it gives you a window into the world of Bekmambetov during the early days of his career. The director really improved with his next outing: the remake of Corman's "The Arena", and following that, the vampire saga: "Night Watch" and "Day Watch." I think we'll be hearing a lot more from this director. He's still pretty much a diamond-in-the-rough I think. In my opinion, this film isn't really representational of his visual talents.
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fifthstreetman2 June 2007
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lana-keeler9 January 2003What a disappointment. ESCAPE FROM AFGHANISTAN had the potential to be so thrilling and engaging, but since the acting was so flat, it made it unwatchable. The overall filmmaking was mediocre at best. Too bad since it is so topical right now.
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Xam_nl6 November 2003I've watched the first 40 minutes of the dvd version, completely bored i turned it off. What a waste of time! The movie starts with a simple prologue, after that there are a lot of explosions, gunfire, fights and chaos in dark corridors. Besides the "Get the hell out of here" action plot it was the terriby dubbed, completely "un-lip-sync". My opinion: low-budget, chaotic crap, don't waste your time watching/buying this.
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james-gall28 March 2003This is not a great film, but I enjoyed watching it. It was made in 1994, but it was "discovered" by Roger Corman in 2002, resulting in some makeshift English dubbing (of very poor quality) and a DVD release. It's not a masterpiece of film technique and the small budget shows, but its value is in showing a common soldier's view of the "Soviet Vietnam" in Afghanistan.
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vincent_romeijn17 August 2006This movie is the most annoying movie that I've ever seen. The only action-part is when the Russian prisoners start to run, and someone (I don't remember who) shoots them down. BORING!!! All of the music in it is bad, and it has some STUPID "interviews" with the Russian soldiers. They mostly go like this: The Russian soldier says:"Don't leave me here!" so a stupid guy yells:"GET OUT!GET OUT!I DO NOT HAVE THE TIME!". Also, the film was dubbed in an awfully bad way; the sound is sometimes out of sync with the people talking in the film.
After watching this film, I found out that this film is actually a 1994 Russian art-house film called "Peshawar Waltz" with almost only Russian actors, which explains this version was dubbed. The lead actor (a British man named Barry Kushner) is actually the only non-Russian actor in the film.
When I was watching this movie,I (really) fell asleep, which usually never happens to me while watching a film. So I woke up and I saw some "SOVIET" helicopters. Well I guess they were not Soviet, but just Stock models. Even "Fire over Afghanistan" is better than this movie. Please, DO NOT WATCH THIS CRAP!!! -
vitachiel18 November 2006OK, the first 20 minutes or so you think you are watching an uninspired and poorly-acted b-movie about a western journalist becoming entangled in a dangerous war situation. Top that with a heap of cheap and easy atmospheric special effects and you will find yourself preparing for a long and tedious 90 minutes ahead. But be patient, just wait and get absorbed in the grim, strange and spooky world of a forgotten small-scale war episode, where people become mad and pathetic psychopaths. The madness of war in all its dark glory.
For a while I was wondering whether I was watching a foreign (i.e. non-American) movie which had been dubbed into English, but I couldn't figure out whether the actors were speaking in a foreign tongue or not. As I understand now, this movie was made by a Russian director (who also directed the great Night Watch) and features almost only Russian actors. The acting looks bad because of cheap and useless American post-production. It's a strange world... -
blackandangrywhiteman26 April 2012Now, don't get me wrong, this is no Oscar winner or even anything to go raving to your friends about, but this film is certainly not as bad as everyone says it is and definitely does not deserve the low score it has on IMDb.
You must look past the terrible dialogue because once you do that, this is an atmospheric, gritty film about the Russian/Afghan war. When you watch this, forget everything you've heard on here and watch it with an open mind. This film, while it does have it's flaws, has a very interesting blend of chaotic action and disturbing ambiance.
Like I say, certainly not the crap that everyone says it is.