For me there are too many cringe inducing moments. Acting is not stellar, some cold-war tropes are taken into extreme (one repeated point is that station needs to be solved, because USA is going to steal it with the Shuttle which happens to have cargo bay of just suitable dimensions). Acting is also so-so :( Visuals may be great, but otherwise I would not even call this movie good.

On the shuttle, it looks like paranoia now, but let’s keep in mind the event occurred only 10 years after project Azorian was made public, which did exactly that.

The movie is very loosely based on the real events though. I think the worst part for me is how incompetent flight control on the ground is portrayed.

"USA is going to steal it with the Shuttle which happens to have cargo bay of just suitable dimensions"

Assuming it would fit, is that completely outside the realm of possibility? There aren't many good reasons for being able to return such a payload from space, capturing enemy satellites seems to me to be a major one.

There is a moment in a movie when they talk about it. Soyuz 7 is 6x15 meters and weights 20ton. Shuttle's cargo bay is 6x20 meters and has a capacity of 20 tons. Coincidence? They think not. And there is also a French guy in the Shuttle's crew who flew on Soyuz and is familiar with it.

However! One of the major plot points is how the station is rotating out of control, and that makes docking very, very difficult. In fact, none of the cosmonauts can do it in a simulator, so they have to go back to the main protagonist, who was decommissioned because he saw angels(?) during EVA.

Now imagine how challenging it would be to grab this rotating 20-ton object and put it into a cargo bay.

If I were a shuttle commander, I'd find the idea of bringing a spacecraft inside the shuttle, where I couldn't verify the disarmed/ defueled state of the captured vehicles thrusters, deeply unpleasant.

Possibly, but if for example you suspect it of being a space based weapon (one of the Salyuts did actually have a gun attached), and it needs to be recovered due to threat of a nuclear war...

If I were a pilot I'd find the idea of people shooting at me 'unpleasant'. Its an accepted part of being a military pilot though.

Plus why are you worried about piddly little thrusters on the way down? You realise what you have to sit on top of to get up there... :P