THE PLOT THUS FAR
A drama set centered around the war between Russia and Georgia, and focused on an American journalist, his cameraman, and a Georgian native who become caught in the crossfire.
WHAT WE THOUGHT
“5 Days of War” revolves around the experiences of two news reporters Thomas Anders (Rupert Friend) and Sebastian Ganz (Richard Coyle) who accept an assignment in Tbilisi, Georgia, a year after their previous assignment together in Iraq ended badly: the two men were rescued by a Georgian military unit in that country after their car was ambushed by militants. Anders and Ganz’s noses for news (and trouble) get them fired upon while watching a wedding at a rural Georgian inn, avoiding capture while witnessing and filming atrocities by Russian troops who have invaded the country, and ending up as prisoners of a Russian general (Rade Serbedzija). While simultaneously escaping, yet being drawn to, trouble and danger, the reporters pick up a Georgian woman, Tatia (Emmanuelle Chriqui), a guest at the wedding at the inn.
We see our journalists visiting the wedding, which naturally gets bombed. That episode, no doubt, was inspired by the Afghan wedding that was mistakenly bombed by US number of years back, it made me wonder why the writers decided to use events from Afghanistan in this movie… but much later, my first surprise was that the episode showed four planes firing a rocket on a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. That made no sense whatsoever, completely destroying suspension of disbelief. The movie goes on like this for quite some time with number of events and characters’ actions that make little sense, but then the really bizarre episodes begin.
The Blu-Ray comes with deleted scenes and a commentary from Renny Harlin. The A/V Quality is pretty sharp with a rather detailed 1080p transfer and TrueHD 5.1 audio track. While it doesn’t compare on a visual level to Harlin’s past work, it’s still pretty impressive for the guy. I wish more directors took more personal risks in their material. In the end, I’d recommend a purchase.
RELEASE DATE: 11/29/2011
