A good movie well worth watching, executed in a very much American-Hollywood style, rather than the typical Russian dry-I'm-going-to-die-before-the-plot-is-ever-revealed style. But, there are faults.
Glaringly, there is a serious historical omission, or flaw, in this movie. In traditional Soviet fashion, it is presented that Kalashnikov invents the AK-47 out of thin air. Yet nothing could be further from the truth - even by Kalashnikov's own admission.
Kalashinikov was an excellent engineer, in the very purest sense, but clearly, and without doubt, his design is in form an exacting copy of the German (Schmeisser designed) StG-44 assault rifle. Perhaps we should say Kalashnikov was "inspired" by the StG-44, but the movie doesn't even go there. In other words, the AK-47 does exactly the same thing as the StG-44, it fills exactly that same evolved need that all modern Assault Rifle do, albeit in a better, cheaper to produce, easier to maintain, and more reliable technical form.
Having said this, the AK's actual design, the mechanics of how it functions and how it's made, is clearly not the same as the German StG. This is where Kalashnikov's genius comes into play. He designed his own action, admittedly (quoted by Kalashnikov himself) and loosely based on the American M1 Garand rifle action - which is a robust and simple gas-actuated rotating bolt design, unlike the Schmeisser StG-44, and then Kalashnikov combined it with his own, genuinely simple yet robust design qualities.
A second point worth note, is that just like Schmeisser's StG, Kalashnikov's original goal was for an inexpensive stamped-steel body. And so, Kalashnikov's original design, and indeed the original AK-47 prototypes, are reported as stamped sheet metal steel. However at the time, it is recorded that manufacturing techniques available were reputedly not able to achieve this in production with the needed quality, and thus the original AK47 reverted to a traditional (heavy and expensive) milled-steel body, until years later, when the "modernized" Avtomat Kalashnikova (AKM) was introduced - which ultimately became the AK we all know and love.
This last point is the segue into my second criticism about the movie. The actual AK rifles shown did not always appear historically correct. Later production AKM's seemed to be presented as the initial prototypes in a little bit of a mish-mash of correctness.
Bottom line, it is a good movie - entertaining, and mostly accurate, however unfortunately diluted by the obvious historical inaccurate and stereotypical Russo-Soviet mindset that the Soviets invented everything good in the world. So like everything Russian, you have to take the good with the bad, and those pathological lies so endemic to Russian culture.
Glaringly, there is a serious historical omission, or flaw, in this movie. In traditional Soviet fashion, it is presented that Kalashnikov invents the AK-47 out of thin air. Yet nothing could be further from the truth - even by Kalashnikov's own admission.
Kalashinikov was an excellent engineer, in the very purest sense, but clearly, and without doubt, his design is in form an exacting copy of the German (Schmeisser designed) StG-44 assault rifle. Perhaps we should say Kalashnikov was "inspired" by the StG-44, but the movie doesn't even go there. In other words, the AK-47 does exactly the same thing as the StG-44, it fills exactly that same evolved need that all modern Assault Rifle do, albeit in a better, cheaper to produce, easier to maintain, and more reliable technical form.
Having said this, the AK's actual design, the mechanics of how it functions and how it's made, is clearly not the same as the German StG. This is where Kalashnikov's genius comes into play. He designed his own action, admittedly (quoted by Kalashnikov himself) and loosely based on the American M1 Garand rifle action - which is a robust and simple gas-actuated rotating bolt design, unlike the Schmeisser StG-44, and then Kalashnikov combined it with his own, genuinely simple yet robust design qualities.
A second point worth note, is that just like Schmeisser's StG, Kalashnikov's original goal was for an inexpensive stamped-steel body. And so, Kalashnikov's original design, and indeed the original AK-47 prototypes, are reported as stamped sheet metal steel. However at the time, it is recorded that manufacturing techniques available were reputedly not able to achieve this in production with the needed quality, and thus the original AK47 reverted to a traditional (heavy and expensive) milled-steel body, until years later, when the "modernized" Avtomat Kalashnikova (AKM) was introduced - which ultimately became the AK we all know and love.
This last point is the segue into my second criticism about the movie. The actual AK rifles shown did not always appear historically correct. Later production AKM's seemed to be presented as the initial prototypes in a little bit of a mish-mash of correctness.
Bottom line, it is a good movie - entertaining, and mostly accurate, however unfortunately diluted by the obvious historical inaccurate and stereotypical Russo-Soviet mindset that the Soviets invented everything good in the world. So like everything Russian, you have to take the good with the bad, and those pathological lies so endemic to Russian culture.