Most movies are little else. That one is no exception.
I got irked at the scene where Yuri busts in on his brother who had just laid out a massive line of coke on the glass coffee table in the shape of the Ukraine, planning to snort his way around the whole thing, and Yuri hollers something like, "You'll be dead before you get to Kiev!"
He shoulda said Sevastopol or something. A real Ukrainian would know that even Teddy K. wouldn't have got to Kiev the way the thing was laid out.
This and other such things sucked all the realism from the Yuri Orlov character. You could say I'm nitpicky. But I do it because I don't want fiction to replace reality in my own head. Especially the fiction dreamed up by Hollywood leftists.
Sounds like you have a real connection to Ukraine. I adopted my daughter from Dnipropetrovsk in 2004. Man I love that country. It’s pretty rough in a lot of ways, but I loved the people there and all things Ukrainian. I’ve spent time in Russia as well...out to Siberia (Nizneangarsk) and time in Moscow...what a great place. If I ever find myself single again (God forbid for I love my wife), I will go to Ukraine.
As for the movie, I really liked it but it was way sensationalized.