9th Company Blu-ray delivers great video and decent audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
A year in the shared lives of a group of young soldiers drafted to serve in Afghanistan during the final year of the Soviet conflict. It is a story of the unit s dedication to each other during their valiant defense of Height 3234...a futile battle.
This isn't basic training, this is war. You don't get bad grades, you get killed.
9th Company is a film of lofty ambitions and admirable goals, though it never quite achieves
its desired level of effectiveness as either an anti-war commentary or as memorable War picture that
was destined to nestle up alongside the genre's greats. Instead, first-time Director Fyodor
Bondarchuk's picture moves along at a nice pace but seems to channel other War pictures rather
than building its own identity. Aside from the place and time of the depicted conflict and the faces of
the Russian combatants, there's little that distinguishes 9th Company from any number of
"good" but not "classic" War pictures. Still, it's hard to not admire what the film wants to be and the
way it goes about its business. Even if parts of it seem pulled straight out of better pictures, 9th
Company has its heart in the right place, which counts for quite a bit. The film is
well worth a watch despite some problems with characterization and structure; it's just not destined
to be remembered as the picture it wanted to be and should have been.
Off to war.
The year is 1988, and the Soviet Union has for nine years been engaged in a bloody and losing
conflict with the Afghani Mujahideen. No power has ever conquered Afghanistan, and it looks as if
the mighty Soviet Army will be the latest to fail. At the tail end of the conflict, a group of new
recruits are training for combat and life in Afghanistan. Their drill instructor is the battle-hardened
Dygalo (Mikhail Porechenkov), a tough but fair man who teaches them not only how to fight, but
how to survive, how to become men, how to work as a cohesive unit. Their training is difficult,
intense, laborious, and infuriating, but 153 days of hardship has them prepared to enter the
conflict as members of the Army's 9th Company operating in the rocky and dusty terrains of
Afghanistan. Their mission: survive the ordeal. Their enemy: a hardened band of well-armed
rebels fighting for their land, their beliefs, their history, and for one another. As the men face the
realities of war, their bond is strengthened and put to the ultimate test in a desperate battle for
survival at Height 3234.
Director Fyodor Bondarchuk's debut picture is a relatively strong one, even if it never amounts to
much beyond basic genre elements and cliché. At its absolute best, 9th Company delivers
a few moments of soulful emotion and well-constructed action scenes, though in a more general
sense both come across as trite and cheesy much more often than they do honest and engaging.
The picture never quite finds a proper balance and seems more like an early and unfinished cut
than it does a well-oiled final product; perhaps it's a case of assigning to it undue comparisons with
genre greats like Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Black Hawk Down, and
Saving Private Ryan,
but 9th Company simply never achieves anywhere near the same level of emotional
resonance through the plights of its characters, which is the key to making a great War picture,
even beyond slick and exciting action
sequences. The picture lacks the same level of precise character development as its
contemporaries, and most of the characters seem more like paper cut-outs who've been assigned
some
random trait
or feature that never seems to mean much to the their actions, decisions, thoughts, and the
consequences of the victories and defeats they enjoy and endure throughout the picture. Like
everything else in 9th Company, the characters are constructed to an adequate level but
not to the point where any of them will be remembered in the same breath as Full Metal
Jacket's Private Joker, Platoon's Chris, or Saving Private Ryan's Captain Miller.
Another problem stems from 9th Company's overzealousness in its attempts to
supersede its contemporaries. Whether a head shaving scene that's straight out of Full Metal
Jacket (though admittedly with a twist) or its attempts to mimic the handheld, overexposed,
and ever-so-slightly sped-up visuals of Saving Private Ryan, 9th Company just
seems like its trying too hard to be too many things rather than staying the course and focusing
on its
own story and
characters while discovering its own identity and building off of it. It's not a good sign when an
original movie feels more like a re-imaging than its own
entity, but that's where 9th Company more often than not finds itself. Still, Director
Fyodor Bondarchuk manages to accomplish quite a bit with what he has to work with, all despite
some pacing issues, extraneous elements, and the absence of
better scripted characterization. Though it's nothing new -- it's been doen before and done better
-- Bondarchuk does well in shaping the contrast between fresh recruits and a war-torn drill
instructor who only longs to get back into the fight, despite a disfigured face and plenty of trigger
time in his past. The punch-counter
punch back-and-forth between the recruits and their drill instructor yields some hefty emotional
substance and frightening psychological tensions even before the bullets begin to fly as the men
form a bond through both the pleasures and pains they experience in basic training. It's here --
and in the film's most nondescript segment no less -- that it finds its footing, and it does well
enough to set up the picture's violent final act.
Unfortunately, that final act just doesn't amount to much. 9th Company features several
solid and extended action scenes at film's end, but none of them play out as particularly
memorable. They're filmed, acted,
and choreographed to a point where there's no denying their competence, but there's nothing
about them that seems all that interesting beyond quenching the basic needs of Action movie
audiences. The problems don't stem solely from the way the action is captured, though; it all goes
back to the light character development, and the result is an empty, "so what" reaction when one
of them dies. When one of the main characters is killed -- signaling the beginning of the
film's final conflict -- his death is met more with a shrug rather than shock. The film simply lacks
the emotional undercurrents necessary to underscore and heighten
the action. As it is, 9th Company just feels like a mid-level Action movie -- one with
admittedly good production values -- but without an understanding of just what it takes to mold
not just another War movie, but create a masterpiece of heart, soul, and feeling, the elements
that do more for a War picture than any action scene ever could and that separate the genre's
masterpieces from the leftover wannabes.
9th Company fights its way onto Blu-ray and wins a steady, good-looking 1080p transfer.
Although it can't escape something of a slight digital sheen while playing host to a few minor problems
including light aliasing and a few jagged edges -- the transfer sometimes has a hard time rendering
the blue and white striped Russian Army undershirts in particular -- 9th Company's Blu-ray
release, in general, looks quite good. Detail is often very strong and the highlight of the transfer.
Although a few distant shots of rocky terrain and Afghan hillsides are lacking in pristine definition, the
transfer reveals plenty of crucial information on sweaty and dirty faces, tattered clothes, and worn
weapons. Indeed, texturing is immaculate throughout most of the movie, and close-ups never come
up short in pristine clarity and definition. Colors are vibrant and steady, though much of the film takes
on an earthy appearance that highlights reds, browns, tans, greens, and blacks. Shadow detail is
strong, and flesh tones only waver in the harshest of outdoor elements. Well Go USA's Blu-ray release
of 9th Company looks very good, and this transfer is easily the highlight of the disc.
Though its picture quality is up to par, 9th Company's two soundtrack offerings fall well short.
Well Go USA's Blu-ray offers two options: a Dolby Digital 2.0 presentation in the film's original Russian
language and a fuller Dolby Digital 5.1 mix accompanying the English language dub. Unfortunately,
neither option delivers a satisfying listen; the absence of a multi-channel mix for the Russian language
option is sure to disappoint, and the lack of a lossless presentation for either mix seems like a missed
opportunity. As it is, the English dub offers up a wider soundstage and more potent effects, and while
the dubbing is tolerable, it's quite disconcerting to see the lip movements be so far off in the
translation. Nevertheless, the 5.1 English mix offers a fair bit of surround information in the way of
both discrete and ambient effects; whether helicopters zipping through the soundstage, tanks
rumbling from front to back, or rain falling across the soundstage, the track is never wanting for more
action across the surround speakers. Bass is present but not nearly as tight and precise as the low
end found on
superior War picture tracks. Gunfire crackles nicely and bullets zoom through the listening area; the
final battle at film's end delivers a hearty, but not quite perfectly engulfing, experience. Music is
generally smooth
and satisfying, with a pop song heard over one scene in chapter nine delivering a full and invigorating
room-filling listen. 9th Comapny's 5.1 mix is adequate; the Russian 2.0 mix isn't bad, either,
and even if it lacks a more distinct and spacious sound field, it at least delivers the film's dialogue as it
was
meant to be heard. With either track, though, listeners will be longing for something better.
All that's included is the 9th Company theatrical promo (1080p, 3:18) and the film's trailer
(1080p, 1:45). A special edition of The 9th
Company with more bonus content is also available.
9th Company desperately wants to be the next great War picture, and one can't help but
admire its ambitions and efforts. Unfortunately, the picture neither achieves its lofty goals, but
it doesn't sink to the depths of third-class pictures destined to be forgotten to the scrap heap of
War movie history, either. Director Fyodor Bondarchuk shows promise, but his film simply cannot
escape the
tedium of trying to either duplicate or one-up the genre greats. Instead, the picture fumbles about
with less-than-ideal character development and is therefore absent the emotional currents needed to
excel beyond genre norms, and that's even considering the picture's entertaining but nevertheless
generic action scenes. Well Go USA's Blu-ray release of 9th Company sports a high quality
1080p transfer but is unfortunately lacking better audio options, particularly when it comes to its
native language soundtrack. This edition is absent the bonus features found on Well Go USA's other
release, and for what amounts to only a slight increase in price, fans are encouraged to pick up the
package with more extras. As it stands, this release is best enjoyed as a rental.
All countries
