In December of 1941, while fighting on the Northwestern front of WWII, Russian fighter-pilot Captain Nikolay Komlev (Pyotr Fyodorov) is on a mission to bomb a convoy of German tanks making its way towards Moscow. However, his Il-2 comes under attack by some German Messerschmitts, and his plane starts rapidly losing fuel, forcing him to land deep behind enemy lines. It quickly becomes a battle for survival as the pilot tries to make his way back, but it is a long walk from Demyansk to Moscow. In addition, Nikolay has been shot and has an injured leg, and if the extreme cold and lack of food doesn’t get him first, it’ll probably either be the wild animals, or the Nazi soldier, Senior Lieutenant (Daniel Brach), who has been relentlessly tracking him. Fueling Nikolay to continue on in these extreme conditions is his promise to his love, Olga (Anna Peskova), that he will return to her.
The Pilot: A Battle for Survival is an entertaining film, based on the true story of a highly decorated heroic Russian pilot. It feels like several different movies combined into one—an exciting military war movie, a tense struggle for survival, a love story, and an inspirational tale of overcoming the odds. The film opens with a tense, action-packed dogfight as two Russian planes try to bomb their target while avoiding enemy fire from German planes in the sky and Nazi tanks on the ground. These sequences are really well done, with convincing effects and some really exciting action. Then, the majority of film follows the tense and harrowing struggle of this pilot trying to make his way back home after falling behind enemy lines, which new dangers lurking over every hill. As Nikolay deals with one life-threating obstacle after the next, he often flashes back to his relationship with opera singer Olga, whom he first met near the start of the war, when he saved her from some muggers after her ration stamps. Whenever Nikolay is in a particularly bleak situation, he thinks about Olga in order to give him the strength to carry on. But he is being pursued by some relentless enemies—a pack of killer wolves, and a ruthless German soldier determined to hunt him down. At the same time, the elements also prove to be a very dangerous factor. It will be a miracle if he manages to survive. The final act of the film, takes the movie in a different direction, serving more as a solute to the inspirational stories of many Russian pilots who were severely wounded in in the war, only to return and demand that they be able to continue to serve their country. This last act felt a bit long, dragging out the film unnecessarily for something that could have either been covered in a screen scrawl, or in an entirely separate movie. If the film had ended just before this act, it still would have felt complete, though we do get one more exciting air battle to close things out.
Well Go’s Blu-ray release includes both the original Russian soundtrack as well as an English dub, both of which have their plusses and minuses. I found the English dub to be generally well done, but for a few of the characters, the voice acting was a bit uninspired. Also, all of the characters have no accents, sounding more American than German or Russian. With the Russian audio track, all of the characters speak in their native tongues, but after the German characters speak a line, it is followed by Russian narration translating that line, rather than just using a subtitle or a Russian dub for the German characters. This sounded a bit odd, and where the English track was nicer because they just dubbed all the German characters in English instead of having this duplicated translation that didn’t line up with any moving lips. That said, a good portion of battle and survival portions of the film don’t have a whole lot of dialogue. Also, both tracks make excellent use of the surround and stereo channels to provide an incredibly immersive experience, especially as the bullets and mortars start flying in the battle scenes. The windy elements and howling of the wolves also really come to life.
The Blu-ray’s video presentation is also quite satisfying. The film uses a more muted color palette with lots of blues, grays and browns, but the picture always looks clean and clear, with a solid level of detail. The air battles, bullets and explosions look convincing and real. Unfortunately the disc is barebones when it comes to bonus material, only including the film’s trailer along with some previews for some other Well Go releases. The disc comes packed in a locking HD keepcase with a cardboard slipcover.
What’s Included:
Film: (1:45:29)
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Blu-ray:
- 1080p / Widescreen 2.39:1
- Audio: Russian DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Russian Stereo, English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English Stereo
- Subtitles: English
Extras:
All remaining trailers play back-to-back after starting playback for one item.
- Trailer (2:04)
- Previews
- Unwelcome (2:19)
- Escape From Mogadishu (1:58)
- Spiritwalker (:37)
Final Thoughts:
The Pilot is an engaging film, with some exciting WWII air battle action sequences, and a tense tale of survival at its core. Things get a little dragged out and overstay their welcome a bit in the final act, but I still enjoyed the film overall. Unfortunately the barebones release doesn’t include any bonus material—since this was based on a true story, it would have been nice if there had been some short featurette regarding that. The timing of this release is a bit unfortunate given the current state of the world, however, I still found the film to be quite entertaining and worth a look.
The Pilot: A Battle for Survival [Blu-ray]
$13.09 (as of January 9, 2025 20:05 GMT -05:00 – More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
The Pilot: A Battle for Survival [DVD]
$8.99 $8.00 (as of January 9, 2025 20:05 GMT -05:00 – More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
