Rent Sniper: The White Raven (2022)

Watchable and Timely Ukrainian Film about the Russian invasion from 2014 to 2022 - Sniper: The White Raven review by PV

OK so it must be hard to make a film which is ultimately about a war that is still going on!

The timeline here is from 2014 when Russia rolled into Crimea and 2018 with fighting in the Donbas, the east of Ukraine, where many are Russian-speaking as in Crimea, and then in Feb 202 when Russia invaded Ukraine proper.

Most people may not know this, but in 1860s a British Welsh industrialist was invited by the Imperial Russian Government to pioneer industry in the Donbas region of Ukraine and he did as founder of the city of Donetsk, originally named Yuzovka (Hughesovka, Russian: ??o???) or Yuzivka (Ukrainian: ??????) after Hughes, ("Yuz" being a Russian/Ukrainian approximation of Hughes).

This is basically a revenge drama, though the training bits reminded me of Rocky or similar little guy against the system wins in the end stories.

The end is a thriller, which is exciting and like an action movie. Some sadness here too, Tbh, the genre is mixed - from romance, to tragedy, to revenge drama to action movie - which is maybe confusing and I thought the transformation of a peacenik hippy teacher was a tad far-fetched.

Anyway, worth a watch and very timely of course. 3 stars