Stalingrad

Not a bad war film - but only if you know nothing about the actual battle. The film makers are entitled to take artistic license, and although some historical characters are present in the film, it never even comes close to portraying the battle as it was. Much of the fighting lacks reality and the computer generated Stuka dive bombers attacking reinforcements crossing the Volga are totally unrealistic.

The film takes a quick peek at several themes of the actual battle but explores none - including the character of Zaitsev himself, whose role in the battle was quite different from Law's character. It is worth mentioning that several other Russian snipers, in Stalingrad and elsewhere, killed many more Germans than Zaitsev. It is also amazing how many people believe that Konig is based on a real character called Hartmann, A good tale, but untrue. Still, its a decent film, but the real Stalingard epic has yet to be made

First of all, I think it was a mistake for the screenwriters to pick and choose such a big event in the history of WWII, a turning point so to speak, only to have it placed as a background, to something so much less significant, a duel between two snipers. If one has never read anything historical or seen any chronological movies about battle of Stalingrad, or any other battle for that matter before seeing this movie, one might even wonder, how did Russians win the war at all? With one rifle per four hands? Against tanks? And aircraft? And heavy artillery? You know there's only so much even a drunken Russian can do with his ½ of a rifle. I see all these peoples' comments complaining that the main characters' accents were too British or too American and that that spoiled the true Russian Character, however the Hollywood makers portray that to be. But, being Russian myself, I saw nothing in the movie, at least on the Russian side, that resembled any truth to even how people spoke to each other, how they interacted with each other. They just didn't seem Russian to me, and it didn't matter what accents they used. These characters were biased cardboard characters, speaking cardboard character lines, and acting, well, cardboard-like. In the opening scenes of the movie they show a bunch of unarmed people thrown into battle only to be massacred by well armed Germans. That's a crock of sh*t, pardon my Russian. Basically by 1942, Hitler's army was fighting on two fronts, and it was very, very tired. Both sides were. Both sides were running out of people and supplies. Mostly, Battle of Stalingrad was a two-steps-forward-one-step-back kind of war. People charging and taking over some useless strategic point and then being thrown back, and then charging again. It was a battle to see who had a bigger stamina, because both sides were low in numbers. But it was also a battle involving tanks, artillery, and planes on BOTH sides. In the movie they omitted that, showing us diving Stukas, and yet surprisingly, no anti-aircraft guns firing at them, no Russian planes in the sky, just two soldiers armed with one rifle. Bullsh*t. No number of Vasiliy Zaycevs or Tatyana Whoevers would be able to stand off, and more even, reverse the tide of war against Germans, without having, basically an equally, if not better, equipped army at their side. If you look at the numbers, about 250,000 German and about 100,000 Russian soldiers lost their lives over Stalingrad. Well from the movie it might seem the opposite. Plus the whole mood of the movie. Russian soldiers, seemed no different from prisoners, defending Stalingrad only because of the muzzles pointed at their backs. But actually, believe it or not, many of these people were defending their motherland, their wives, daughters, sons, etc. and they were doing it not because they were to be shot otherwise, but because they loved their country and believed in its future. True, there were special NKVD units that were ordered to fire on retreating soldiers. But there was no other way, at that point. If Stalingrad would've fallen, that would greatly demoralize an entire Red Army, and cause an even greater loss of life. But by no means were soldiers thrown into battle, half-armed into their certain death. That would just be pointless, even for ruthless Russian Generals. Plus when they showed Kruschev commanding the front, I fell off my seat laughing. I can go on and on, and this would be a never-ending story, except that I don't want it to be as boring and as never-ending as the script for Enemy at the gates. Advice for people who like a little reality in their movies, don't see it. It sucks. I try to picture Private Ryan done by the same director. It just wouldn't be Private Ryan, but some stupid unrealistic war flick, sort of like U-571.

ENEMY AT THE GATES / (2001) *** (out of four)

By Blake French:

"Enemy At The Gates" takes place in 1942 and details a cat and mouse chase between two snipers. The mouse is a young Russian named Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law), who arrives on the shores of the Volga River to defend Stalingrad, an important city in which the German's are attempting to capture. Zaitsev soon finds himself befriending a political officer named Danilov (Joseph Fiennes), who is impressed by the soldiers quick skills and decides to glorify him through the local press. Zaitsev becomes a political icon for the locals, giving them encouragement and increasing their hope for victory.

The cat is an opposing sniper named Major Koenig (Ed Harris), a famous sharpshooter called upon to kill Zaitsev. Koulikov (Ron Perlman), another talented sniper, is assigned to help Zaitsev in killing Koenig before the Major takes a victory shot. To further complicate matters, Zaitsev falls in love with another soldier, Tania (Rachel Weisz), whose parents were killed by the enemies, and wants to redeem their honor.

"Enemy At The Gates" certainly paints a vivid, graphic depiction of war. The atmosphere is unsettling and bleak, the characters are almost always dirty and sleepless, the fighting scenes consist of brief, short, instantaneous shots, but the sequences are fast-paced, genuine, and disturbing. The city looks battered and tormented. The dialogue goes hand and hand with the character's actions; the plot is challenging and the movie is focused, about something solid. In the sequences where Koenig and Zaitsev challenge one another, the tension is very effective. The movie tends to realize that, and concentrates a great deal of effort in making those scenes suspenseful and taut.

Joseph Fiennes plays a meek, nervous character and does a good job at bringing him to life believably. Jude Law, whose last work in "The Talented Mr. Ripley" provides a tough act to follow, accomplishes great things with a determined and assiduous character. Ed Harris is the standout actor here, in a harrowing, steadfast, juicy performance. Rachel Weisz cannot do a whole lot with her character, however. She often feels strained and contrived.

"Enemy At The Gates" tries hard to express the subject of the media's influence in our culture. If the film, co-written and directed by Jean-Jaques Annaud ("Seven Years in Tibet"), would have stayed on that concept, it would have been a whole lot better. The romance between Zaitsev and Tania is kind of unnecessary, and I am not sure if the sex scene is obligatory or advances their relationship. This love side story lacks passion; a lot of it feels mechanical and routine. "Enemy At The Gates" is still a consistently intriguing war film-rare because it does not involve Americans. While we are never really concerned about the outcome of the actual war, nor do we entirely care about several aspects of the main characters, there are many good scenes of suspense, and the overall mood of the movie is effective. "Enemy at the Gates" is worth seeing if it sounds interesting to you.

No doubt the title is an indication of what the film would LIKE to be about. The Germans forces were indeed "at the gates" - they are on the verge of capturing Stalingrad, they would lay siege to Leningrad, and at one point even Moscow appeared to be in danger. The situation was desperate. But after we're told all this, the position of the German army turns out to have no more to do with the story than the position of the sun in the zodiac. After a bitter, violent battle over - well, we're never told - nothing of a military nature happens again. Not even offstage. (Until the end, when, after a brief "offensive" of unfathomable significance, an epilogue tells us that the Germans were repelled from after all.) All the action in Stalingrad freezes so that we can watch a protracted duel between a Russian and a German sniper.

Now I'm prepared to believe that snipers played a valuable role in this kind of warfare - I wouldn't know - but Vassili's primary value, we must assume in the absence of information to the contrary, is as propaganda - a means of keeping up the morale of the local troops. But there's something circular here. The snipers are the only people we see doing any actual fighting, and by the end of the film they seem to be devoting all their efforts to shooting a German sniper who is in turn doing nothing but trying to shoot Vassili. What does ANY of this have to do with, you know, the invasion?

The fact that the troops of a hostile foreign power are on Russian soil (they haven't yet been defeated, and it looks to be only a matter of time before even Moscow would be overrun) doesn't seem to motivate the characters to do much. Nobody makes a single decision for the good of the war effort as a whole. Danilov builds up the Vassili legend because of personal feelings and is ready to tear it down later for other personal reasons; Tania wants to kill Germans - kill them herself, by hand, rather than help her fellow soldiers as best she can by working in intelligence - because they killed her parents; Danilov tries to transfer her to a safer job not because that's where she should be (it's a mere coincidence that that IS where she should be), but because he's hitting on to her; Vassili's heart isn't in the duel with the German sniper until he has a casual acquaintance's death to avenge. When Sacha's mother is told that her son is a traitor (now serving the forces who have bombed the city she grew up in to rubble), her only reaction is, "Perhaps he'll be safer with them than with us." Wherever we look, we see dreary personal concerns. Did any of these people notice that the enemy IS at the gates?

If Anaud was trying to make his characters more plausible by making them pettier, he failed. When Sacha tells a third party what we supposedly already know - that Tania is in love with Vassili - it came as news to me. I hadn't seen any insipient love anywhere. I suppose I ought to have worked it out, by assuming that the single female character must be there to fall in love with someone and using a process of elimination to work out who it was (she plainly didn't care for one of the two candidates, therefore she must be head over heels with the other one), but really, even in a movie as dull as this, I have better things to do.

It's the fall of 1942. Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law) grew up hunting with his father in the woods. He, Tania (Rachel Weisz) and countless other untrained recruits are brought up to the front at Stalingrad. He and Commisar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes) survive a suicidal charge. Vassili kills 5 Germans in the aftermath and Danilov writes about him. Nikita Khrushchev (Bob Hoskins) seizes the opportunity to make him a star. Opposing him is the aristocratic German sniper Major König (Ed Harris).

The opening is an amazing opera of mass destruction. Then it's a matter of a chess game. It's a fascinating cat and mouse game in the ruins of the city. I'm glad that nobody decided to talk in a fake Russian accent. That would be too distracting. This is a rare good American war movie not about Americans.