Wagner Group's ‘Best in Hell’ Movie: Trying to Fix a Broken Family?

In the bombed-out hulk of what appears to be a rail depot, “White” ground force commander Polygon sets his watch to a countdown of two hours, and presses start. Simultaneously, an ominous two-hour countdown clock appears in the upper right of the viewer’s screen. Polygon’s men let out tense sighs as they set off on their mission, and their leader looks back with foreboding at a Pelican-style case being held by one of the fighters staying by his side. The battle soon begins when the Whites use automatic grenade launchers to open fire on a building occupied by the opposing “Yellows.” Here, the viewer is quickly dumped into the action of a brutal room-to-room urban fight without much of any backstory and lots of confusion as to why there is a countdown on the screen.

So, begins Best in Hell, the new Wagner Group film directed by Andrey Batov and starring Aleksey Kravchenko, Georgiy Bolonev, and Sergey Garusov. The movie was produced by Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and now deceased commander of one of Wagner’s Assault Groups, Aleksey Nagin. Nagin is also credited as one of the film’s writers, along with Anton Zimin. The storyline, said to be based on an actual action that occurred during the War in Ukraine’s Battle of Mariupol, (though the film appears to have been shot in Luhansk) revolves around a group of Wagner Group stand-ins. Best in Hell isn’t Batov’s first time directing Wagner puff pieces, as he also directed 2021’s Tourist, a film about the Wagner Group’s fight against “bandits” in the Central African Republic.

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We begin in medias res with the White fighters already deployed in front of the first of four buildings that they must take in order to reach their ultimate objective. This objective is the fourth building, which is touted as being the tallest building in the area at nine stories. Like the actual War in Ukraine, the combatants are more often than not wearing the same multicam pattern uniforms and are often only distinguishable by the color of their armbands. White for the Wagner stand-ins and Yellow for the Ukrainian stand-ins. However, the Yellows also have units wearing M81 woodland pattern camouflage uniforms as well as Ukrainian MM-14 digital pattern uniforms. Notably, there are some Yellow fighters wearing skull masks, which may or may not be a gesture towards the real-life Ukrainian Azov Regiment or other right-wing fighters who have been known to don such masks. As the fight across the four buildings progresses, things really begin to unravel for the Yellows after the Whites take a radio off of a deceased enemy fighter and proceed to listen in on the tactical communications between Yellow units. As the battle progresses room to room and staircase to staircase the men from both sides alternately throw hand grenades at, shoot at, stab, and wrestle with one another. Conspicuously, no prisoners are ever taken by either side and the men often resort to shooting otherwise wounded or subdued opponents as they lay on the ground unarmed. All of this action leads up to the frenetic final showdown, which includes both airstrikes and a tank duel. Other than the awkward beginning, the most incongruous part of the film is the overuse of the heroic sacrifice trope, with a White fighter selflessly blowing himself up to achieve victory on nearly every sub-objective on the way to the nine-story building.

A yellow fighter wears a skull mask in the film, which is often associated with Ukrainian right-wing fighters, in what may be a reference to the Azov Regiment.

The film’s cinematography blends traditional camera shots with various forms of modern camera work. The traditional shots are mixed in with drone footage, steady cam closeups of fighters’ faces, shaky cams during artillery barrages, go-pro style action shots from vehicles, and first-person shooter-type perspective shots. The latter were done so as to add to the tension the audience feels as you stalk from room to room with the fighters, rather than giving a gimmicky Doom-type feel. 

In terms of gimmicks, the movie does intersperse the action of the battle with briefing-type scenes from the overall White commander, Whisper, played by Aleksey Kravchenko, who western audiences may know from 1985’s Come and See. While a little odd and didactic, these types of scenes ultimately help the viewer better understand the action as Whisper walks the audience over maps of the battlefield with labeled objectives. It is through these briefings that we ultimately learn of the purpose of the ominous countdown on the screen. In a similar vein, the movie also intersperses weapon recognition slides that inform the audience of the stats of the type of heavy weaponry that the two sides are about to employ in the following scene. Somehow, the weapon recognition slides seem to be more smoothly integrated than the briefings, the latter of which could have been better if integrated as flash-forward scenes directed at a higher-level commander rather than the audience.

Whisper, played by Aleksey Kravchenk, gives the audience a briefing on the course of the battle.

One of the movie’s greatest strengths is its portrayal of contemporary war in terms of tactics and procedures. Both the Whites and Yellows are ultimately led by commanders in tactical operations centers (TOC). In the TOCs Whisper and the opposing Yellow commander are each giving their respective teams various orders in reaction to intelligence and the changing ebb and flow of the battle. Drones feature prominently in terms of both intelligence gathering and executing strikes over the course of the battle, with both Whisper and his counterpart often standing over the shoulder of their main drone operator. Not only are drones from large to small featured, but the use of anti-drone electronic countermeasures also plays a role over the course of the action.

White fighters use an AK pattern rifle to step up into a breach in a wall.

Maybe the most impressive part of the film is the portrayal of combined arms warfare tactics. Both the Whites and the Yellows are constantly on the radio talking to the TOC, infantry, armor, drones, artillery of different calibers, and manned aircraft. In fact, signals intelligence gathered via captured radios serve as important plot devices more than once over the course of the movie. While the portrayal of tactics is impressive, it is not the most interesting part of the movie.

A PowerPoint-type slide giving the audience the details on a 120mm mortar.

If Best in Hell is a propaganda film, then its primary audience may very well be the Ukrainian people. Repeatedly throughout the film both the Whites and Yellows refer to the actions of their opponents by saying “It’s like we’re fighting ourselves.” While this statement is overtly about the tactics of their opponent, the subtext is that these two groups of men think and act the same. This point is driven home twice.

First, during a dramatic scene where a Yellow fighter picks up an Orthodox Christian icon and restores it to a shelf after it is knocked off by tremors from artillery fire. The Yellow fighter crosses himself in the Orthodox “pushing” motion after he places the icon back in its corner. The icon, of who appears to be Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, again falls to the ground as a White assault team breaches the wall to the room. After the White fighters pour into the room, one of them notices the icon on the floor, picks it up, replaces it on its corner shelf, and crosses himself in the Orthodox fashion. Here, at this moment, the Yellow fighter who had first replaced the icon emerges from under the bookshelf that had protected him from the explosion of the breach and engages in brutal hand-to-hand combat with the White fighter, his fellow Orthodox Christian.

The icon of who appears to be Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker being picked up by the White fighter.

Second, during the film’s denouement, the two forces are juxtaposed and found to be similarly damaged, motivated, and frustrated. After the battle’s conclusion, fresh young soldiers are brought to both the White and Yellow commanders who give similar speeches to the young replacements. Finally, Whisper narrates to the audience that little progress was made as a result of the conclusion of the battle. While one of the two sides achieved a tactical victory, this victory was far from decisive. Whisper tells the viewer the war goes on and it looks like little will change.

The ultimate message seems to be one often voiced by Russian President Vladimir Putin prior to the February 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine. The message is that Russians and Ukrainians are one people, and that a war between the two peoples is a war between brothers. While they seem to be the primary target audience, whether any Ukrainians will be swayed by this message seems to be rather unlikely.

Overall, based on this author’s expectations going into the film, it was surprisingly well made, treated the antagonists rather fairly, and gave a relatively accurate overview of how contemporary wars are fought. Finally, as I am not a Russian speaker and watched the movie with subtitles, I may have missed more subtle cultural or linguistic references, and apologize in advance for anything that I misinterpreted to this weakness. For those interested in getting a look at some of the high-quality propaganda coming out of the Ukraine war, I would recommend this film: 7/10.