Rukariver's road

 "Don't fear if nothing to fear hasn't appeared." - Eero Perkola

Rukajärven tie (Rukariver's road) is a post winter war-time movie directed by Olli Saarela. The movie first hit the cinema in January 1999.

The movie begins with a group of soldiers, that work under the main character lieutenant Eero Perkola, spending time on a beach in finland, waiting for orders for the next mission. However it is very hard to understand what exactly is going on in some of these moments as there is no build-up and possibility to understand who these characters are, as there are many. The other part of the story's drama aside from the main war part, is spent between the main character and her bride, Kaarina, sending letters and believing either of them dies every now and then. I think the beginning was meant for the watchers to get an understanding of these characters as stories usually have these "calm" times in the beginning to build-up to the serious stuff, and change the mood, but in this movie it fell flat on its face as the directing was terrible at times. I think the movie wasn't that bad but it felt low budget and try-hard. The writing was cookie cutter war-time stuff you'd find absolutely anywhere, no inspiration whatsoever. The story is just a linear yet somehow messy because of the terrible directing and dialogue which is hard to follow. The story is simple: a group of soldiers journey through their way to somewhere (who knows where, they just got some mission) and investigate every little building out there instead of looking back. That's it.

The climax of the movie happens in a forest where the main group takes on russians from behind and alot of explosions and shooting happens. I was *yawning* the whole way through though. As the deaths in this movie were predictable as hell, the characters acted in their archetypes (asshole idiot guy with the grenade and the one with the injured russian...) and when it did something unpredictable, it was god damn stupid. The movie after halfway through, well a bit before also, with the bride's situation after her group got killed by russians you know, was filled with deus ex machina moments that were also predictable (the main character obviously doesn't die, the bride, the young boys father dying, etc.). The ending made no sense (the bride, the MC and the injured guy who drowned??) and it felt cheesy. Out of the 20 or so characters I only remember 2 (because I looked them up) and wrote down 2 of those idiotic characters' names. None of them stood out in any shape or form .

The acting is kind of bad. The music is classical, which was expected and nothing special, and chuch-music like at one point, which surprised me I guess. It seemed rather low budget to me. I guess it was supposed to catch the realism of the war times but this movie was created in 1999. That's not an old movie by any means, they could have atleast tried making it better as the dialogue felt like it start-cut-start-cut, very obnoxious now that I think of it after watching. 4/10. I could care less how much of a historical value this has on some people. Terribly average plot with mostly everything else being bad. And I actually thought it had some potential half way through. I guess the movie aimed too high in presentation.