The Crew : A Must watch Russian story!
When it comes to disaster or apocalypse films, quite obviously Hollywood masters the art and the genre with its big budget blockbusters. But here we have a remake of Russia’s very first disaster film titled Air Crew which released back in 1980. The Crew or Ekipazh has already racked up many achievements in the past and has been re-made now. This new hollywood movie is the second Russian film to be shot in digital 3D IMAX after Stalingrad (2013). It’s also the first film to be released in Japan after 2006. For a film of this genre, The Crew is doing a great job of opening up the country’s cinematic borders and reaching out to people all over the world.
Directed by Nikoley Lebedev, ‘The Crew’ comes with great expectations being the highest grossing film of Russia. In an attempt to get the audience invested in its characters, the first half of this finest hollywood action movie works towards building interpersonal relationships between three pilots of the airplane. The male leads Danila and Vladmir, have both starred in Hollywood movies before and their expertise in the cinema shows here. Danila plays his character Alex McCoy with sincere sparkle as the rookie pilot with a strong moral code dares to defy seniority in order to serve the greater good.. Causing friction with Alex, Vladmir plays a steadfast yet weathered senior pilot who prefers to stick to the rulebook. The strained relationship with his wife and talented son lends some comic relief to an otherwise somber film.
The dynamic between these major characters of the film provides some emotional footing before action takes off, though slowly again. There’s so much of empathy for the lead, but a host of secondary characters are being introduced during the catastrophe which have an unpredictable impact on the latter story. Some of them have hit a home run while others fail to register. Although, this is when the film’s ‘out of the box’ status begins to make sense as it is dedicated to The Crew’s rescue mission. Shot in 3D, the stunt choreography is unabating, but unrealistic, though that’s in tune with most Hollywood disaster-action flicks. As the two male leads begin to shine, they create some nail-biting sequences helped along by excellent CGI work and make the audience glued to the screens.
‘The Crew’ lands somewhat short of hitting the emotional front as some of the beats are lost in translation. Although top-notch effects and an uncompromising second half puts it on par with some of the best Hollywood has offered. Hopefully,with this movie, more Russian cinema will come to to Indian screens, something that film aficionados will look forward to. Do not miss out this amazing treat from the Hollywood as it’s different on various fronts from the movies you have seen uptill now!