Enemy at the Gates

I was in the mood for a war movie so I watched,

Enemy at the Gates (2001).

This movie is set in the Battle of Stalingrad and follows a young soldier turned sniper, Vassili (Jude Law) as he goes from a nobody to a heroic figure thanks to the propaganda created by his friend Commissar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes). Soon enough the Germans send their top sniper Major König (Ed Harris) to hunt him down in the torn apart ruins of the industrial city.

That is the story in a nutshell. We also have Rachel Weisz as Tania Chernova, Bob Hoskins as Khrushchev and Ron Perlman as Koulikov. Enemy at the Gates is directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud who also directed amongst others The Name of the Rose and Seven Years in Tibet.

First off I want to point out that the movie does many things that are not true. In the beginning, the Soviet troops are sent in to fight, but only every other man gets a rifle. This never happened. Ammunition could be incredibly scarce, but they never sent their troops into battle without weapons. There are other things like bombers flying way to low to the ground, the fact that it is not winter in the movie, but the real Battle of Stalingrad was blanketed in an unusually cruel and hard winter. There is also apparently no German records of a Major König, though it is proven that Vassili (who was real) did kill several highly skilled German snipers.

There are many errors like that throughout the movie, yet it doesn't really matter that much. Enemy at the Gates is two hours long and somehow it didn't feel that long. Annaud has done something special in this movie, and I'm not really sure what. Yes, the actors are really good and both Law and Harris were cast specifically because they are so good at acting with their eyes. The music is fine, and very reminiscent of other movie scores, but I can't say what and from where, but throughout the movie I had a strong feeling that I had heard the score before.

The movie itself is beautiful, which is weird to say about a war movie, but the way it was created is stunning. The ruins, the bombings, the masses of people all feel so real. Sure it is often panicking civilians or the dead and wounded, but the first thing a war movie needs to work is a sense of realism, and Enemy at the Gates has that in spades. The romance subplot between Law and Weisz is likewise realistic and quite sweet. Perhaps it is in the balance of the story that the genius lies? When the war part risks getting too overwhelming we get friendship or romance and when that starts to get a bit stale, we are back to the war.

My biggest complaint is the lack of actual sniping. The back and forth hunt between Vassili and König is incredibly tense and exciting, but there is a surprising lack of people actually getting shot. Being such a huge fan of the Sniper Elite games, I was hoping for more, but you get what you get. Although I'm 100% sure the developers of Sniper Elite has seen this movie several times since I found scenes and scenery that is incredibly close to scenery I have traversed in those games.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, I do. Fans of war movies that haven't seen it should see it, and even those who aren't that big on the genre could like it. Unlike other war movies I have written about, this movie has a solid arc, character development, and though I can't state that the movie has anything to really say, it has a story that makes sense. I won't go so far as to say Enemy at the Gates is a great movie, but it is solid and worth two hours.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great and safe week!