Prisoner of the Mountains (1996)

Academy Awards, USA 1997

Nominated Oscar

Best Foreign Language Film Russia.

Orion Classics
Directed by Sergey Bodrov
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, MGM)

Two Russian soldiers are taken prisoner by rebels in a remote mountain village. They are held by a man hoping to exchange them for his own son held prisoner by the Russian military. The two men, of vastly different temperaments, are chained together. One is a seasoned soldier constantly looking for a way out and the other a young private just hoping to survive. They befriend a young girl, the daughter of their captor, who brings them food and other favors. The Russians are unwilling to cooperate with an exchange and the village elders are getting restless. One of them forces the issue leading to tragedy. Good location photography in what is today Dagestan, but the plot, based on a Tolstoy short story, is very slow and ultimately too simplistic to make much of an impression.