Enemy at the Gates

Rating:
Summary: Some Folks Just Don't Get It
Review: A lot of folk don't get this movie. The director is dealing not so much with war, but with the creation of a propoganda icon. The film jumps back and forth between reality and myth. In essence, it's the story of the Soviets building up a myth about a heroic sniper in the ruins of Stalingrad, taking his exploits and exagerating them. One scene may be gritty realism, while another surreal myth. The opening scene is a good example of the former, while the climax, in a hushed, mist shrouded rail yard, is the ultimate expression of the latter. Yes, it's impossible to imagine a day when any part of Stalingrad was virtually bereft of sound. The director knows this and that's the whole point. Watch the film while asking yourself, "Is this scene a view of what 'really' happened, or part of the created myth?" A friend, with more knowledge than I in such matters, tells me that there are many, obvious references to the great Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein. If you are looking for nothing but "reality", I recommend _Band of Brothers_ instead. As for the romance, I'm usually very much against a slapped-together "Hollywood" romance, but it's well handled here and not a huge part of the story. Those who talk about it "marring" a large part of the film are prehaps seeing the romance as bigger than it is, hating the fact that it is there at all. Ironically, there were female snipers in Stalingrad and there has been a suggestion that the historical main character did have a romantic attachment to a female sniper. While watching, ask yourself if the romance appears in the "realistic" scenes or the "mythical" scenes...

Rating:
Summary: Stalingrad come alive.
Review: This is a terrific portrayal of the epic battle of Stalingrad and the heroic sniper efforts of the Russian army. A great war movie without all the huge battle scenes but rather just following the story of one man. The choas and bravery of the event are caputured masterfully and Jude Law delivers his best performance yet.

Rating:
Summary: For what it is....... good..........
Review: First off, I'm usually a stickler for historical accuracy, either literal (Tora! Tora! Tora!), or figurative - the "flavor" of the times the movie deals with (Braveheart).

Enemy at the Gates is a bit in both categories. From the literal point of view, the Russians used Mosin-Nagant M-91/30 rifles and the Germans used K-98k Mausers in the movie, as they actually did, and the uniforms appeared to be pretty correct, as well. And the dirt and devastation and horrid living conditions in a destroyed city came thru loud and clear. The Soviet use of (very) expendable shock troops was also there, along with the strange-to-western-thinking importance of political indoctrination, both of which were real.

Was the often mentioned love triangle necessary to the movie? No, not really, but it did serve to show that people are still people, even under brutal living conditions, in very trying times.

Was it an accurate portrayal of the actual siege of Stalingrad? I don't know, likely not, I'd guess. How can you handle such an overwhelming historical situation in one two hour movie? BUT... was it a visually realistic, visceral look at a part of WW II that has been almost ignored by Hollywood? I'd say yes.....

I'd say it is a very good movie, overall, in kind of the same way that Red Dawn is a good movie, even tho RD is completely fictional, and Enemy is more or less factually based. Both of these movies hit you in the gut that war is dirty, and cold, and hurts.

Rating:
Summary: It's not the history channel
Review: This was an excellent film. If you want history, watch the history channel. If you want entertainment, watch Enemy at the Gates.

Rating:
Summary: Dunno about the actual history too well,
Review: but the movie itself is very nice. The battle between 2 snipers from Russia and Germany lead all the way to the end.

Rating:
Summary: Insulted Russians, cheering Americans-lost truth!
Review: Ed Harris Bravo!
What can I say. Watch his other movies. Pollock was superb.
This movie is not a learned text in history.
Ruined Stalingrad is just a stage to explore greatness of human spirit and show how unaducated russian peasant (Russians cheer up!) can elevate himself to face much more skilled enemy.
Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Not about War, about People
Review: I think some of the other folks reviewing this film missed the point. This is a film about people in a situation beyond imaginaton. How these people survive, fight, and love in an environment where death can come at any minute is the true focus of the film. The point is to see how heroic in the face of insurmountable odds men and women can be.
The film understates the brutality of the German forces and emphasizes the vicious discipline tatics of the Red Army. The Soviet soldiers were sent against machine guns with no weapons, no leadership, and apparently no real training.
How hero(s) arise from this is the story. Others have focused on a love triangle in this story as a cliche, but on careful examination I think something else is going on between the young boy, the German, the girl and the political officer. Watch the film and think about it.
This is not a war or history film. It is about human nature in unbearable circumstances.
Caution: Very bloody and gory.

Rating:
Summary: Bad History
Review: First of all, this is NOT the story of the seige of Stalingrad and never comes close to telling the story of that pivotal battle. At best, it is a made up war-romance, comrades in-arms tale with a historical figure, Vasilly Zaitzev, at the center.
Not a bad movie, but not a very good one either.

The first 10-20 minutes of the film are pretty good. The footage of Stukas attacking Soviet troops as they make the crossing into Stalingrad was terrific. The film, on the whole, loses track of itself in my view and becomes a mish-mash of contrived sub-plots. It's not nearly as bad as that god-aweful Pearl Harbor movie with Ben Affleck but it ain't very good.

The story of the defense of Stalingrad is one of the most compelling and dramatic of the war. This movie really tells none of that story other than to bring the Soviet war-hero/sniper Vasilly Zeitzev to the attention of people who otherwise wouldn't know who he is. The storyline regarding the SS sniper who hunts Zeitzev in Slalingrad (Ed Harris) is more mythology than history - - there were stories and rumors about it at the time, but there's scant historical record suggesting that the Germans actually dispatched anybody to try to do Zeitzev in.

After a couple of hours of watching Jude Law's Zeitzev knocking off German officers one at a time, and gawking at the love triangle sub-plot that basically wrecks half the film, we learn as the credits start to roll that Russians win the day and beat back the Germans with absolutely no portion of the story devoted to explaining how that actually happened. Somewhere between 1 and 2 million people died in Stalingrad in the battle that wiped out the German 6th army and pretty much made a German defeat inevitable and the movie really doesn't tell that story. Too bad. This could have been a great movie.

Rating:
Summary: Rental material, but no more.
Review: World War II was won and lost on the Russian Front, but most Hollywood war movies pretend that it never happened. The Russians themselves are partly to blame for this, since for 40-odd years they denied Western historians access to their records; nonetheless it is a pretty glaring omission. "Enemy at the Gates" is only the second English-speaking movie I've ever seen on the subject, and while it is riddled with flaws, it is still a pretty entertaining flick.

In the summer of 1942, the Germans launched an all-out offensive into the oil-producing regions of southeastern Russia, the Caucuses, with the aim of choking the Red Army to death by slicing its gasoline arteries. To achieve this aim they had to advance down a narrow corridor formed by the land bridge between the Don and Volga rivers, into the Caucuses mountains, and take Grozny, near the Turkish Border. On their flank, built on the banks of the Volga, sat the big industrial city of Stalingrad. The Germans had to either take the city by storm or seal it off to prevent the Red Army from using it as a springboard to hit back at them as they moved south. For their purposes one suited as well as the other. The important thing was not to lose sight of the objective of the whole campaign: the oilfields.

Characteristically, Adolf Hitler, who had drafted the undeniably brilliant plan, did exactly that: midway through the offensive he peeled a third of his fighting strength away from the oilfield attack and threw it at Stalingrad. His reasons were partly political: it bore the name of his arch-enemy, and had a lot of prestiege, if no military, value. It was not enough to flatten the city or to neutralize it: he wanted it captured, even if this meant jeopardizing the entire meaning of the campaign he himself had engineered, and putting an elite mobile army of 300,000-odd men at risk of being annihilated in a "rat war" for which they were not trained or equipped.

"Enemy at the Gates" begins midway during this fateful campaign. Although set in Stalingrad, it is not about the battle itself but a duel between snipers, German and Russian, which serves as a metaphor for the battle itself. Young Vassily Zeitsev (Jude Law) is meant to represent Russia: he's an engaging, somewhat naive peasant-boy from Siberia whose skill with a rifle, and whose friendship with an influential commisar named Danilov (Joseph Fiennes) make him a celebrity. But while Vassily is quite an able killer, he is really no more than a gifted amateur, and he knows it. Opposing him is the steely-eyed and cool-blooded Major Konig (Ed Harris), who has been brought into Stalingrad specifically to kill this nuisance, and who bears himself like a man who is the best at what he does and knows it, and knows you know it too. As the movie progresses, the struggle between the snipers becomes more and more personal, and for most of the film the two characters are presented simply as protagonist and antagonist. Law is a good choice for Zeitsev, and Bob Hoskins is hilarious as the villainous Nikita Kruschev, who tries to steal the movie by doing things like handing a defeated Red Army general a pistol and telling him to "cut through the red tape" but the movie belongs to Ed Harris, who turns out to have a highly personal motivation for killing Zeitsev after all. Unfortunately, the writers commit a horrible Hollywood blunder and turn him into a cartoon Nazi just before the film's climax, thus making the cardinal storytelling mistake of telling the audience what to feel rather than simply letting the action speak for itself. It is as if they suddenly realized he was not a villain but merely an antagonist, and the ... audience might be confused be seeing him as a man instead of a (Nazi)uniform. This is such foolishness it comes close to ruining the movie by itself, but "Gates" has just enough to recommend it despite this and other blunders, namely a by-the-numbers love-story/triangle, claustrophobic photography and jumpy editing. It could have been a classic war movie, but in the end it settles as simple entertainment. I would recommend it as a rental, but only die-hard war buffs would want to buy the DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Probably the best war movie i've ever seen.....
Review: .....Or at least, the one closest to reality! greatly directed, amazing artistical direction, outstanding edition....this movie presents a totally different point of view from the ones i've seen in previous war movies. It's not the same old Vietnam cliché, the same scenarios, the same ultra-repeated story....and the action was simply breathtaking, the crude reality was presented bare as it is. Great for Annaud, this one deserves all prizes.