Leningrad Reviews

Ever since Mira Sorvino won an Academy Award for her performance in ‘Mighty Aphrodite’, I always had a weak spot for this actress and, as a result, I watched many obscure movies just because she was involved. This movie is perfect example. To be honest, I really had no idea what to expect from the damned thing but, I have to admit it, the introduction was actually pretty good. Indeed, it was a really efficient way to put the viewers immediately in the horror of war and the damned thing was just very well done. However, instead of focusing on the hardship of the people living in Leningrad, they introduced this foreigner who became eventually the main character. Why did they think that a foreigner would be more interesting?!? In fact, it is a gimmick used in many movies. Indeed, even though the action is taking in some foreign country, they still choose to focus on some Western character because, I suppose, they think it would be easier for the Western audience to identify with this character. Well, it is usually a worthless gimmick and, on top of that, in this case, to make things worse, Mira Sorvino's performance was rather weak which didn't help at all. It is too bad but the whole thing really had some potential with some amazing historical background but, at the end of the day, it was pretty much just a weak movie about WWII.