In the Zone of Special Attention

In the Zone of Special Attention (В зоне особого внимания) is a 1978 Soviet action movie, directorial debut of Andrei Malyukov. It achieved cult film status among several generations of the Soviet Airborne Forces and veterans, and, along with Hit Back, it became part of their popular culture. The Soviet audience was approximately 35.4 million. The film was made with the political support of Vasily Margelov, a Red Army general who was commanding officer of the Soviet airborne troops.

Plot
Somewhere in the Soviet Union, a huge military exercise is in preparation. Opponents in the exercise are two Soviet Army groups designated as "Northern" and "Southern". As manoeuvres begin, the commander of the "Southern" airborne regiment designates three reconnaissance groups to be dropped far behind "Northern" lines, to locate and capture the rival "Hidden Command Center" (HCO) and to set up a radio beacon indicating its location to the airborne assault troops. Two of the three groups are soon captured by "Northern" counter-reconnaissance units. The third, led by Lt. Tarasov (Boris Galkin), manages to successfully evade all the traps set by the enemy.

Meanwhile, a group of criminals has escaped from a nearby prison. They managed to acquire firearms and injured the local store manager and killed her driver as they were taking the store's daily cash proceeds to the bank. Tarasov uses his military radio to report the incident to the local police, perfectly realizing that such radio transmission will give away the whereabouts of his group to the adversaries. The regiment continues on to its set goal, while Praporshchik (Soviet Warrant Officer) Volentir (played by Mihai Volontir) is left behind to take care of the injured woman. Once police forces arrive to the scene of crime, Volentir hurries to the house of his relative, a forest warden, whom he plans to borrow a motorcycle from in order to catch up with the rest of the group. As he arrives at the forest warden's hut, he realizes that its inhabitants are held hostage by the aforementioned criminals-on-the-run. Volentir, utilizing his training in martial arts that all paratroopers acquire in the military, neutralizes the criminals, thus rescuing his relatives.

Meanwhile "Northern" Mjr. Morozhkyn (Anatoly Kuznetsov), having indeed intercepted Tarasov's report to the police, leads the pursuit and surrounds the location in the forest where Tarasov's group has been spotted. The paratroopers manage to escape by braving the swamp that is considered impassable.

The group reunites with Volentir and reaches its designated target, which turns out to be a fake underground facility built merely to deceive — and the pursuers are closing in rapidly. Tarasov, an inexperienced young graduate of the Ryazan Airborne Military Command School, is downheartneed, feeling that the opposing force has outwitted them and that his group has failed its mission. Experienced Volentir cheers up the younger commander, suggesting that the group checks out the nearby location where they spotted "northern" guards communicating with their commanding officers over military wired telephone. Tarasov heeds the advice and leads the group to follow the telephone wire, while Volentir stays behind at the fake bunker to distract, and thus delay, the pursuers.

Fifteen minutes are remaining until the planned arrival of the airplanes carrying the paratroopers, and commanding officers are still not aware where their intended target is, so they are intending to go on with a way less desirable plan B: execute the drop at the originally planned location and perform their own search. Thankfully, the telephone wire has lead Tarasov and his group to the location of the actual command center. They set up the radio beacon for the main paratrooper force. After being dropped, the paratroopers headed by Tarasov seize the HCO. Tarasov faces the commander of the "Northern" army group, telling him: "The hidden command Center is "destroyed". My apologies, comarade general."

Cast

 * Boris Galkin — guard lieutenant of the "Southern", Viktor Pavlovich Tarasov
 * Mihai Volontir — guard praporshchik of the "Southern", Alexander Volentir (voice Nikolai Gubenko)
 * Sergey Volkash — guard private "Southern", Alexei Egorov, fighter of Tarasov's group
 * Igor Ivanov — guard sergeant of the "Southern", Pugachev, radio operator of Tarasov's group
 * Anatoly Kuznetsov — Major Gennady Semyonovich Moroshkin, Head of counterintelligence of the "Northern"
 * Alexander Pyatkov — captain of the "Northern", Zuev ("Zuich")
 * Vladimir Zamansky — guards colonel, commander of the regiment "Southern"
 * Oleg Golubitsky — guard lieutenant colonel "Southern", Oleg Borisovich, Chief of Staff of the Regiment
 * Boris Bachurin — guard lieutenant "Southern", Pakhomov
 * Mikhail Chigaryov — guard senior lieutenant of the "Southern", Kirikov
 * Anatoly Vedenkin — guard praporschik of the "Northern" in the captured by the paratroopers UAZ-469
 * Ivan Agafonov — lieutenant colonel of the militia
 * Elena Kuzmina — shopwoman of the robbed shop
 * Nikolai Kryukov — old forester, grandfather of Pugachev
 * Elena Tsyplakova — granddaughter of the forester, Nastya
 * Mikhail Kokshenov — guard major "Southern", Smolin, duty officer
 * Sergei Podgorny — soldier-driver in the store
 * Yuri Chernov — duty officer of the "Northern"
 * Gennady Chulkov — lieutenant-colonel, head of "Northern" intelligence
 * Alexander Gai — major-general Protasov, commander of the regiment of the "Northern"
 * Irena Leonavičiūtė-Bratkauskiene — attendant
 * Victor Denisov — criminal
 * Victor Smekalin — criminal

Production
The film's title is a reference to the sector on the map located beyond the reach of radar, considered by "Southern" officers to be a "High Attention Area", where a rival HCO could be located. The main characters do not wear the standard camouflage gear of the Russian Airborne Troops, but outfits custom made in the sewing workshop of the Mosfilm studio. A lot of scenes were cut from the movie for reasons of military secrecy.

Release
At first, release of the film was forbidden. The State Political Directorate issued a note prohibiting "a movie glorifying a power of our army, because it will play into the hands of the enemies of international détente".

In an interview in February 2007, director Andrei Malyukov said that he still did not know in which countries his movie had been released, this being restricted information. It went to a few dozen countries, however. In 2008, the film was shown at a festival of military history films.