A survival story - based on real events

Rating: 7/10 (30 September 2012)

Director Weir has accomplished a magnificent - and undoubtedly not a cheap task, due to the need for variety of landscapes. Although only Indian scenes were filmed in India, the geography and other background are very trustworthy. The route is harsh, its cause is dangerous, but the beauty is still there - even in an empty desert.
The real stars of the movie are Farrell, Harris and Ronan (my ranking). It is really amazing how an Irishman (Farrell) looks like and speaks as a real Russian crook! The others, incl. Sturgess, have perhaps less interesting characters, at least they were not convincing to me.
The only thing a bit distracting is the language issue - similar to other movies where events or characters are non-English. Combination of Russian actors and English-speaking actors speaking Russian is not always a success - though here some common rude Russian words are audible, which is seldom the case even in Russian movies :)
PS It is a pity that, Stalinism-communism is still considered more decent than Nazism (portaits of Stalin and Lenin or hammer-and-sickle symbol not banned etc) although there have been far more victims and lost generations under communist eras.