d6a2afd33b In Moscow, an enterprising female detective decides to turn a humiliating defeat experienced by her department into a reality-TV show in which the police prep for a counter attack. A gang of crooks robbing cash collectors, run into a police surveillance team and the inadequate police response results in a gunfight. A TV crew on assignment in the area happens to capture this humiliation on camera, and this example of police incompetence is soon the lead story in every news bulletin. Public confidence in law and order now suffers irreparable harm. The head of the Moscow force welcomes a public search-and-destroy operation against these thugs, the brainchild of Katya, his PR director. She proposes that the capture of this dangerous gang be transformed into a live TV show of a kind never seen before. At this point she cannot know that the gang leader&#39;s life-and-death struggle with the police is destined to lead to a media duel. Besieged in a huge apartment block, the crooks hold hostage a father and his son and daughter. A massive special forces rescue operation is mounted but fails miserably. Undaunted by this setback, Katya and her team of specialists manipulate the footage to create the illusion of victory. Incensed by this version of events broadcast on TV, gang leader Herman strikes back. Using the boy&#39;s computer he uploads to the Internet his own footage of this debacle and starts broadcasting from the apartment via a web camera. The first shots have now been fired in an information war, whose survivors and victors have yet to emerge. What do Die Hard and Rambo have in common? Bullets! It&#39;s a very controversial issue, but without being politically correct, there are some people who really love shooting guns. For some, especially for many youngwellsome older Americans and other people around the entire globe from nearly every nation, that can be just video game shooting, hand-eye-coordination training. You&#39;ve got your most recent as-close-to-life-as-possible-for-a-game type games like Splinter Cell and Modern Warfare 2 (I&#39;ve played that one a bit, I admit it can be fun.) This movie is for those people, whoever they are, that love tactical maneuvers and tons of bullets flying. Some war vet and/or militaristic types of people really love this kind of thing. Suddenly I am reminded of Hot Shots: Part Deux, when Charlie Sheen talks Miguel Ferrer out of his sudden loss of his war-like ways and then Miguel blows his nose, says, &quot;Thanks Topper! I can kill again thanks to you!&quot;, jumps up to shoot some goons, then turns around to speak directly into the camera in a TV ad way to say, &quot;War! It&#39;s fantastic!&quot; with a big wide grin on his face. I wouldn&#39;t be surprised to find out that the guys who wrote the Newsmakers screenplay were big fans of Tom Clancy&#39;s books. The tense philosophical parts were nice but I felt like it didn&#39;t really get into hammering home major lessons in morality and was more of just a long joyride the whole way through with (I promise) tons and tons of bullets. Flying hot lead all the time, a heaping 100 minute serving of almost non-stop action, Russian style. The bad guys were made to be justlikablethe good guys for the most part. At times I felt like I wanted them to win. It was pretty good in that way. The actors and director were pretty good. The camera, FX, and editing crews were all really superb. There could have been a little more music I think. Seemed like there was supposed to be some sort of perverse romance-type think going on, but it didn&#39;t seem to be one of the strong suits of the script. Its a movie for guys who like action movies anyway so leave your girlfriend behind unless she&#39;s a sadistic homicidal maniac just like you are. Remakes are not solely owned by the Americans. In this case, a Russian filmmaker took Johnnie To&#39;s &quot;Breaking News&quot; and remade it. Unfortunately I haven&#39;t seen the HK Original from To, but judging from what I saw in the Russian movie (and of course To&#39;s general body of work), it must be a really great movie.<br/><br/>It translates into the Russian landscape well and you have an action movie, that is intelligent, with a slight taste of media criticism. Good characters make up for a great viewing, with whom you can stay on and people you can root for (even if their intentions might be criminal ones). This movie really had me caught and made me really want to see the Original, which I am going to do soon, too!
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370 weeks ago