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95 of 114 found the following review helpful:
 Both good and disappointing (contains spoilers)Aug 19, 2001
By Jonathan D. Eckel
"nekulturnii istorik"
It is so gratifying to finally see a major motion picture made about the WWII Russian Front. After all, it was the Red Army that inflicted 80% of Germany's total casualties in the war, a fact that many Americans remain sadly ignorant of. It is high time we get past Cold War attitudes and pay tribute to the heroism of the Soviet Union in its bitter but ultimately triumphant struggle against Nazism. _Enemy at the Gates_ is a movie of epic proportions, featuring good overall performances by a solid cast as well as a spectacular cinematic recreation of the bombed-out city of Stalingrad. Still, the movie tends to drag at times, and could have been much better. The love triangle subplot was more of a distraction than anything else, taking up time that could have been better used to tell more of the awesome story of the battle of Stalingrad as a whole. Rather than simply having the German commander state, "These snipers are demoralizing my people," it would have been nice to have actually "seen" a little bit more of how the actions of Zaitsev and the Soviet snipers wore down the vaunted German infantry. Regrettably, the duel between Zaitsev and Koenig seemed to be taking place in a separate reality than the war itself, almost giving the impression that both sides had an unwritten agreement to let the two rivals shoot it out without interference. Also, the abrupt ending gave no explanation as to how the Red Army, seemingly on the ropes throughout the movie, suddenly emerged victorious. It would not have taken much film time to explain how this came about: the tenacity of Stalingrad�s defenders drew the mechanized German forces into costly city fighting, allowing the Red Army�s powerful reserves massed to the north and south to punch through the weak Axis flanks and encircle the Germans. Saving Private Ryan succeeded in telling much of the story of the Normandy invasion in a way that neatly complimented the movie�s plot. I wish that Enemy at the Gates had made more of a similar effort. I know that �dramatic license� is a fact of life with historical movies, but it is way overdone in this one. The opening sequence of the Volga crossing is powerful filmmaking and is mostly accurate up until Zaitsev and his fellow soldiers enter the city. The following part about only every other man receiving a weapon and being sent of in a suicide charge is purely the stuff of legend, though, more fitting of the WWI Russian Army or a Soviet punishment battalion. The reality was that the Red Army in Stalingrad fought mostly in small detachments armed with submachine guns rather than rifles, moving stealthily amongst the rubble and ambushing the Germans in brutal house-to-house fighting. This sort of close-quarter combat, where the front lines were often separated by less than 20 yards (or even a mere hallway or staircase), would have played out on screen just as well (better, in fact) as the �charge of the Red horde� that is the stuff of popular imagination rather than true history. The conclusion of this scene is misleading, as well. The Soviets did shoot many deserters who attempted to flee the front lines, but this degree of harshness did not apply to survivors of a failed attack as shown in the film. The commanders of the Red Army were often brutal towards their men, but not quite that brutal. As for the way the sniper duel is finally brought to a close, with Koenig walking upright in plain view towards what he suspects is the spot where he has just shot Zaitsev dead, it is just ridiculous. Not even a rookie sniper would have made such a fatal error, much less an instructor. The Soviet characters all share the names of actual people, but none are true to their real-world counterparts. Vassili Zaitsev was more of a natural leader than the movie gives him credit for, not just a shy boy from the Urals reluctantly pushed into the limelight. Danilov, the political officer, appears to have been crafted by the screenwriters almost solely in order to make a faddish intellectual statement about the pitfalls of Communist idealism. The real Danilov was shot (though not fatally) when he foolishly stood up to point out Major Koenig�s location to Zaitsev, not in an act of suicide. Tania Chernova�s on-screen character was the furthest from reality, though. She was actually a short, temperamental blonde who had previously fought as a partisan in Byelorussia and the Ukraine. A veteran killer by the time she arrived in Stalingrad and possessing a single-minded hatred of the Germans, the real-life Tania could hardly have been more different from the sensitive student/soldier who never actually fires her rifle once throughout the whole film. Also, Chernova was likely Ukrainian, not Jewish (only worth noting because of the widespread myth that most Ukrainians welcomed the Nazis as liberators from Soviet rule). Ironically, the character that seemed truest to reality was Major Koenig, a shadowy figure who some historians claim might never have existed. Though I used most of the space here to criticize this movie, I guess the fact that I bought the DVD means that I nonetheless enjoyed it. I probably would have rated it better were I not such a Russian history buff. Do yourself a favor and take the time to read both _Enemy at the Gates_, by William Craig (a very readable non-fiction account of the whole Stalingrad campaign) and _War of the Rats_, by David Robbins (a novelized version of the sniper duel that is both a better story and closer to historical fact than this movie was). My main regret is that the film�s potential was largely squandered to make room for unneeded political rhetoric and melodrama. I only hope that its mediocre performance will not discourage film producers from backing other Russian Front projects in the future.
84 of 102 found the following review helpful:
Hollywood takes an overdue look at the Eastern FrontMay 22, 2001
By Joseph Haschka
After many major Hollywood epics about the war on the Western Front (THE LONGEST DAY, PATTON, A BRIDGE TOO FAR, BATTLE OF THE BULGE, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN), it is long overdue that ENEMY AT THE GATES, centered on the pivotal battle for Stalingrad, should play to audiences ... particularly American audiences. The core of the plot is the personal duel between two expert snipers, the Red Army's Vasily Zaitsev (Jude Law) and the German Wehrmacht major, Koenig (Ed Harris), the latter brought into the Stalingrad cauldron to kill the former before he totally destroys the morale of the German troops trying to capture the city. It's a cat and mouse confrontation depicted with startling realism, though, in this case, the mouse is just as deadly as the cat. The rest of the film is just window dressing, especially the sappy love triangle between Zaitsev, political commissar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes), and a female Red Army sniper, Tania, played by Rachel Weisz. The film, set among the rubble and destroyed factories of Stalin's city, is visually stunning. The performances of Law, Harris and Fiennes are excellent, as is that by Bob Hoskins, who plays Joe Stalin's political representative on the scene, Nikita Krushchev. My complaints center on the accents of the main characters, which don't sound Russian by any stretch of the imagination, the previously-mentioned and totally superfluous love story, and the fact that the Krushchev is given way too much screen time at the expense of the Russian general, Chuikov, who doesn't even appear, even though he was the Red Army's military commander whose gritty defense of the city ultimately prevailed. This story of the duel between Zaitsev and his German nemesis is based in fact, though a better telling of the tale is the work of book fiction, WAR OF THE RATS, by David Robbins. If you're interested in this footnote to the Stalingrad struggle, the book is a "must", and the film will serve as excellent visual reinforcement.
17 of 21 found the following review helpful:
Finally there's a movie about the Eastern FrontAug 16, 2001
By The Siege
I have studied the Eastern Front for many years, and finally there is a movie I can see about it. The opening scenes, especially on the young Red Army soldiers cross the Volga river into the battlefield, were both realistic and visually stunning; which painted a gruesome and grandiose picture of all the books I have read regarding the battle of Stalingrad. Another strength about the movie is that it showed the tremendous sacrifice and suffering of Russian soldiers who fought on despite tremendous casualty from German fire and NKVD (Soviet State Security forces) executions. I think this film has brilliantly captured the fact that however much the Soviet press in WWII played up the propaganda about personal heroism during the war, the authorities had a total lack of respect for individual lives. According to Antony Beevor's book on Stalingrad, Chuikov, the commander of the Red Army in Stalingrad that disappointingly did not show up in this film, was quoted as saying "Every man must become one of the stones defending Stalingrad." Perhaps the real horror of the battle of Stalingrad was that Russian soldiers were used as discardable weapons in order to defeat the enemy, which utimately saved the world from Nazi domination. The cinematography of the duel between two snipers (Ed Harris and Jude Law) was very good, but I believe too much time was spent on this theme. I did not care for the love story that kind of got stuffed into the movie perhaps to soften up the hard edges of battle. As a war movie, "Eenmy at the Gates" have some obvious weak spots. However, overall I am just very happy to see a well-produced movie on one of the most decisive battles of the Eastern Front, and hope that more films will be made regarding this subject in the future.
21 of 27 found the following review helpful:
 The Truth Was More DramaticSep 06, 2001
By Scott Janssens
I had high hopes for this film, and perhaps that's why I was so let down by it. A movie based on a very dramatic true life showdown between snipers during World War II featuring the amazingly talented actors Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love) and Ed Harris (Pollock) can't miss, right? Unlike the sharpshooters in the story, this flick misses badly. Mostly I blame the director, although the writer gets a big chunk of blame as well. The director, Jean-Jacques Annaud, seems concerned only with the visual effectiveness of the backdrops of this film and with nothing else. Joseph Fiennes is a terrific actor but the director allows his British mannerisms to show even though he's playing a Russian. Every time Fiennes pronounced Tonya as "Tonyer" it made the movie a little less real, which is the last thing a viewer wants from a historical drama. What I'll never understand is why the writer didn't stay true to history. The historical facts are much more dramatic than the story told here. Gone is the three day standoff between the Russian and German. Remember in Saving Private Ryan when the German sniper was killed by the bullet passing through his scope and hitting him in the head? That's how the real story in Stalingrad ended, but not in this film. The reason for this change is one of the snipers wants to go back to being a regular soldier. No reason is really given for his wishes. This is especially bad since he was pretty keen on becoming a sniper in the first place. The ending is anticlimactic, mainly because for most of the film we see the two snipers playing a game of cat and mouse. When one finally kills the other, it has nothing to do with sniping, and is only marginally connected to the game they were previously playing. The German sniper (Ed Harris) is woefully two dimensional, though Ed Harris manages to make him interesting even if we are never presented with the character's motivation beyond a single mention that his son was killed at Stalingrad when the Germans first attacked. The Russian's motivation is based in Hollywood clichés. This introduces a love interest and a spunky kid spy, as though simply staying alive isn't motivation enough. Despite some good acting (Bob Hoskins is wonderful as Kruschev), the movie descends into nothing more than a bland Hollywood war story.
10 of 12 found the following review helpful:
Ah, what could have been....May 26, 2003
By Dark Mechanicus JSG
"Black Ops Teep"
When I first heard about "Enemy at the Gate", I was intensely excited: one of my favorite directors (Jean-Jacques Arnaud, who produced such brilliant, intriguing, and engaging spectacles as "Name of the Rose", "The Bear", and "Seven Years in Tibet") helming up a film about a sniper duel in the ruins of Stalingrad during the darkest days of World War II. Leaving aside the question of who to root for (the Nazis or the Soviets, gee, great choice), I was giddy with anticipation: after all, the Eastern Front of WWII is an overlooked genre, even though most of the carnage occurred in the clash between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. The only war film to really deal with the horrific death-struggle between the totalitarian empires of Stalin and Hitler is "Stalingrad", Joseph Vilmaier's traumatic study of the effects of the chaotic Eastern Front on a squad of German troopers. What was most exciting about the prospect of "Enemy at the Gate", which deals with the same period, is the struggle between the Russian sniper Vasily Zaitzev (Jude Law) and his German counterpart and would-be assassin, Major Konig (Ed Harris). What could be better than a personal duel between two of the war's deadliest snipers, played out over the Ragnarokian fight between the war's two deadly evils? Ah, what could have been. "Enemy at the Gate," for all its excellent production value and directorial talent, stumbles badly. Some movies should be content to snuggle into their subject and remain there, and this is one of them. "Enemy" fails in that it tries to do too many things, and does all of them poorly. Jude Law plays Zaitzev, a young Russian sniper who rallies the morale of the battered Russian defenders of Stalingrad by harrying the Nazis in the ruins; Ed Harris plays Konig, the German sniper sent to kill Zaitzev and spare the Fuhrer embarrassment. Had Arnaud stuck to the intricate game of cat-and-mouse between the snipers, "Enemy at the Gate" could have approached sheer brilliance, and would certainly have been a classic. Lamentably, the movie throws in two other themes that eventually hobble the film: national politics (with Bob Hoskins wasted as a flatulent Nikita Krushchev), and a miserable love triangle between Zaitzev, a Russian woman adjutant (played by the ever-tasty Rachel Weisz), and a Russian officer Danilov (played blandly by the overrated Joseph Fiennes). It is simply too much for the movie to handle well, and distracts from the real conflict between the snipers. As a result, the love-triangle feels forced and pedantic; I found myself wishing that the hopeless affair would get resolved so we could get back to the action. When Arnaud centers on the duel between his protagonists, the movie is at its best---and in these sequences, filmed amid the smoking ruins of Stalingrad, the film delivers. But as Nietzsche said, 'one criticizes most accutely when one compares to the Ideal", and "Enemy at the Gate" could have been so much better. Because Arnaud forces us to skip back and forth between the sniper duel, the romance, and the political sequences, the sniper scenes themselves suffer, seem disjointed, and ultimately the duel itself gets lost in the shuffle. Think the final conflict between Harris and Law is going to be exciting? Think again; the final duel ends lamely and awkwardly, and Harris's character behaves in a way that is so totally out of character as to be unbelievable. There are some sensational moments in the film: the scenes of German Stukas dive-bombing Russian transports are horrific and brilliantly conceived, as are the harrowing sequences where ill-equipped Russian soldiers, unarmed, ran behind their comrades into battle, waiting for the man ahead of them to drop so they could use his weapon. Arnaud also gets the feel of bombed-out and gutted Stalingrad just right, and has made a perfect playground of death for his combatants. But far too many things are wrong with this film; Jude Law, an excellent and disciplined actor, plays Zaitzev with quiet and deadly dignity, but he seems bursting to be allowed to act. Harris, usually a solid actor, seems awkward with his role, and delivers his lines in a stilted voice. Ron Perelman, an old alumnus from Arnaud's "Quest for Fire" (where he played a Cro-Magnon), seems wrong given the tone of the movie, and it is almost a relief when he is shot. Ultimately "Enemy at the Gate" succumbs to its flaws, and is far more frustrating that it is satisfying. The viewer thinks back to the promising opening sequence, where a young Zaitzev sights a wolf through his telescope, and wonders: ah, if only the director could have let us see the war through the eyes of the two 'wolves' and their telescopes, what a satisfying film "Enemy" might have been.
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