Our Own

Our Own is a 2004 Russian action drama film directed by Dmitri Meskhiyev. Plot In October 1941, the Soviet Union is experiencing an invasion by Nazi Germany. Despite Soviet resistance, the Germans occupy large parts of the country. In a so far unoccupied part of the disputed Pskov Region, an NKVD officer (Sergey Garmash) arrives at an officer's building and speaks to a NKVD officer, handing him the documents of a fallen Red Army soldier. Suddenly, a grenade explodes and German special assault troops enter the building and open fire. "Checkist" and his NKVD comrade, a political instructor called "Livshits" (Konstantin Khabensky) flee and, amid the chaos and gunfire, discard their uniforms in a local laundry, knowing that German troops shoot Red Army commanders, officers, political commissars and Jews. Eventually, they are caught by soldiers from a German motorized infantry unit and led westward along with many other prisoners. After marching for a time, the German soldiers stop and allow the prisoners to eat. Livshits is threatened by a fellow prisoner who blackmails him into giving him his food by threatening to denounce him to the Germans, who would shoot him as a Jew and a commissar. However, the blackmailer's throat is then cut by "Checkist" and he dies. After eating, the prisoners resume their march. Livshits, "Checkist" and a young Soviet sniper Mitya Blinov (Mikhail Evlanov) decide to escape and successfully flee the German soldiers. The three protagonists find shelter in Blinov's home village, Blyany, where his father Ivan Blinov (Bogdan Stupka) still lives. Blinov Snr allows the three escapees to hide in his barn. "Checkist" suspects that Blinov Sr. is a pro Nazi policeman, but Blinov Sr. himself admits to being a village chief who is 'working' for the Germans and cites how he was unjustly deported to internal exile by the Soviet regime. The villages have found a way to manage their own interests. Arguments and conflicts appear between "Checkist" and Blinov Sr but the situation calms down and the men begin to cooperate. The threat of being reported and arrested by the Germans lead the three protagonists to kill a local policeman who is working under the German occupation authorities and is a possible traitor, called Mishka. They stab him to death with a knife made for slaughtering pigs, push his body and bike in a river and keep his Mosin-Nagant rifle.