5 Days Of War Reviews

...an aggressively unwatchable piece of work that trivializes its searing subject matter...

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4

Opening with the oft-quoted statement "The first casualty of war is truth," 5 Days of War should have heeded its own warning.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5

Harlin made a wise decision to use Checco Varese as his Director of Photography. As a veteran news cameraman, he has a wealth of experience shooting war zones which translated brilliantly to this film.

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"5 Days of War" is an action-packed and tense story of a handful of ultra-heroic war correspondents who risk their lives to tell the truth.

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[Presents] its protagonist journalists as ill-defined types performing heroic daring-do and the Georgian refugees taken under their wing as a plot device.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

An action movie scarcely deeper than a Michael Bay extravaganza.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

One can imagine a powerful film being made using the brief 2008 'war' as a backdrop. Unfortunately, this isn't it.

Full Review | Original Score: C

Harlin's film begins with the familiar adage that truth is the first casualty of war. Usually that phrase precedes an attempt to revive the patient, not bury it deeper in the rubble of propaganda.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Basically 5 Days of War is a popcorn movie for people itching to hate Russians again.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

5 Days of war seems like an eternity if you are in the audience.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10

The plot is culled from a variety of "war is hell but I'm covering it anyway" journalist-in-the-field movies but handled with clichéd clumsiness in a script by David Battle and doctored by Finnish writer Mikko Alanne.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

Flimsy dramatization of Russia/Georgia conflict fails both as historical re-enactment and as action-flick thrill ride.

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Harlin manages to summarize the intensity of combat and the despair of conflict. Despite its many flaws, "5 Days of War" retains a visceral punch. A shame it doesn't have much of a brain.

Full Review | Original Score: C

As propaganda, 5 Days Of War is unlikely to make a mark, though perhaps the idea of reaching people through would-be blockbusters will.

Full Review | Original Score: D+

A finely realized depiction of war today and of the civilians who suffer the not always 'collateral' consequences.

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Harlin's roots show throughout the picture, as he films real-life horrors with a bombast better suited to summer entertainment.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4

Embarrassingly clumsy.

Full Review | Original Score: 0/5

Should appeal more to those who like to watch stuff blow up than understand exactly why the carnage is transpiring.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

A hell-on-earth thriller that makes valiant gestures toward geopolitical savvy but gets bushwhacked by vet helmer Renny Harlin's weakness for the Rambo-esque.

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The low-budget movie, set during Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia, is neither innovative nor profound, but it is kinetic, visceral and sometimes moving.

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