Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

memmori I pretty like this movie not because of my special favor to aircraft disasters (although I like films like Turbulence or Airport) but because of outstanding bunch of actors starring here and because of our common knowledge that there were NO $ billions spent for effects. This film shows HOW you may do your job if you are a true PROFESSIONAL of cinema (and not just a guy who was chosen to spend much money for visual effects made by computer). If you may show great results without money, you are great. And this film is great. To Arik from Washington: I'm pretty sure you were a Soviet citizen :) People who came from USSR are often very hostile to anything produced there despite its real quality.

arikde I could have look beyond the "special effects" from the 1950's if this movie had a semi-decent plot line, but it did not. Someone in the USSR movie bureau decided to get together a bunch of actors and write a soap ... when the soap idea failed they decided to take the characters, give them uniform, and a earthquake to make a movie.There are so many inaccuracies in the movie - besides the pathetic disaster sequences, I had a hard time figuring out the time line for the movie and was shocked to see the poor camera work ... I mean, can't they invest in a camera which did not reflect light (last scene.)Just overall a poor movie. Usually movies with bad effects you can laugh off ... but you couldn't here because the movie just dragged on and on and on ...

Harry-57 I rented the DVD for this movie because I remembered reading about it when I was a kid. With this film, the Soviet Union attempted to "cash in" on the success of western disaster films like "Earthquake" and "The Towering Inferno." I rented the movie because I thought it might be interesting from an historical standpoint.The film was about 20 minutes longer than it needed to be, and it suffers from too much set-up -- nothing disasterous happens until over an hour into the picture. But the carnage does eventually start, and those scenes are pretty good, especially the ones set at the airport located in a canyon. The effects crew did a remarkable job with what appeared to be meager resources.

gauphrey Well, a lot of people in Europe and USA think that 99% percent of Russian films is dull boring stuff. Actually, it's right for many of them. However, 'The Crew' seems to be an exception. It tells us the story of three aircraft pilots; everyone of them with his own problems: a pregnant daughter (Timchenko), a lost child (Nenarokov), problems with woman (Skvortsov). But all of this is forgotten, when they need to make an awful race : from the burning city in the Middle East to Moscow. The burning airplane in the end of the film, and other technical tricks are really amazing. The common spirit of the film is not like that of western films-catastrophies, but it's more epic. Worth seeing, if you are interested in quiet films.