I have started watching the movie multiple times, over the years. But for some reason I never saw the whole thing. What I do remember is a standoff between Renko and Lee Marvin in the snow. Recently I thought about it again and decided I wanted to know the whole story. If I had known that the boring movie had much tighter storytelling than the book, I might never have started the book. Dear god, there was so much fluff. Some of the stuff not related to the story was nice and gave me a good feeling of the Soviet Union. But there was just so damn much boring crap. Like those endless pages at Shatura. What was that all about? If the book had been half as long, it would have been great. But at nearly 400 pages... no, thanks.