The young country of Estonia is dancing to the jazzy tune of the 1920's when on December 1, 1924, the capital Tallinn is overrun by members of the Comintern in an attempt to stage a Communist coup. The film follows the fates of a young soldier called Tanel and his wife, a telephone operator named Anna, amidst the ensuing chaos which determines whether the country remains independent or becomes a minor province in the Communist Empire.
Reviews
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
This is a lame excuse for a "political"/historical drama movie, it's even bad for a propaganda one; every movie-cliché is present here in it's worst form, for example, in one of the final scenes you get a BIG, BAD, COMMUNIST villain who tries to kiss a damsel-in-distress (who happens to be the "good guy" girlfriend) while (I kid you not) there's some old ladies tied to a chair in the room next door, silently screaming because their mouths are gagged (it looks like a "popeye" scene, really). Luckily our hero, a charming young man, comes up in the last minute and saves the girl, kill the baddies and saves the republic for falling into the soviet hands! Another thing you can learn from this movie: All communists are bad, like, REALLY bad. They spend all time murdering people in cold blood and shouting incomprehensible slogans. And their bosses in Moscow are no better, really. Now that I recall, before I said this movie had every bad-movie cliché in the world, well, I was wrong: the filmmakers didn't made Zinoviev use an evil laughter or pet a cat while he was commanding the failed coup; now THAT would have been the icing on the cake. Kudos for that, you win an extra point: 3/10
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