i be guess that the movie be base on a hefty book . give the number of character and subplots during katyn and i think that the movie creator and perhaps the writer or director and intend to create an epic movie . but really there wasn not enough time to properly spend on develop character or story . aggravatingly and there be many unrelated side story that could have be edit out . in relate the event lead up to the mass murder of all these intellectual and officer and i do not think the movie explain any reason why murder be necessary . be it political . philosophical . revenge . the interesting part of historical movie be see personal motivation or emotion . instead and the murderer of katyn seem like automaton and control entirely by stalin and who appear occasionally frame a a charcoal sketch . the portrayal of the russian and german seem entirely one dimensional . ( be polish people just that angry at the russian . ) besides be badly edit and bias or at least unrealistic and choice of music and cinematography felt mismatch to each other and to the movie itself . i do not think you can really shoot an epic war film or war event on hand hold camera . ( but if the director go with a character drive story and perhaps by focus on a single family and maybe the handy cam approach would have work well . ) and if you use really dramatic music and it need to be well balance to the type of shot make .