Enemy at the Gates

The movie Enemy at the Gates is a big budget WWII movie that has its pros and cons but ultimately is one of my all time favorites.

The movie opens up with the Nazi invasion of Stalingrad in September of 1942 and takes us to the end of that six month battle. Since the movie is based of the book and because of the fact that both of my grandparents were war veterans and are Russian, I know that the opening scene is a historical masterpiece. The soldiers are given one rifle and a magazine of bullets per two people. If the first guy dies the other one grabs his rifle and keeps going forward. That situation was based on the fact that Soviet's were very very poor and didn't have enough money to buy ammunition. The problem with Stalin's Regime was the fact that you could not turn back or you would get shot by your own peers, which is also brilliantly described in the film.

From that gory opening scene the movie goes into introducing survivors of the opening battle Russian sniper Vasiliy who is played by Jude Law and political officer Danilov played by Joseph Fiennes. Vasily will prove his skill as an expert marksman by killing five Germans in succession with five bullets from a far distance when him and danilov are trapped surrounded by a fountain of dead buddies. After Danilov sees Vasiliys abilities he wants to make him a Russian hero and the two decide to become friends. Afterwards Vasiliy becomes a member of an elite sniper team who's mission is to kill as many Germans as possible and Danilov writes an article everyday in the Russian Newsletter publishing facts on how many Germans Vasiliy kills.

Then comes a very boring cheesy Hollywood part of the movie when suddenly a love triangle appears among Vasily, Danilov and a pretty university-educated militia fighter, Tanya, who studied at Moscow University German literature and desperately wants to avenge her parent's murders by Nazi's. The reason for this being a boring part of the movie is that the focus of the movie is changed and instead of the accomplishments of the sniper we are forced to be concentrated on the situation where one man (Danilov) is trying to be better than the other (as in sports)and come up with treachorous ways to split Vailiy and Tanya up and after realizing that Tanya's heart lies with Vasiliy tries to write bad articles and lies.

The publicity makes Russians proud and they want to name mines and shops after Vasiliy as is evident from the fan mail received, but Germans who become concerned with the success of this sniper send an elite, educated, experienced, veteran sniper Major Konig played by Ed Harris to kill Vasiliy! This is the best part of the movie. The movie depicts how professional, precise, skilled and yet completely different two snipers are. The cold uncompromising and brutal German sniper gives the little Russian spy-boy Sasha chocolates to find out info on Russians, and then hangs the little boy to create chaos and rage inside the Russian's mind. Also amazing how director Jean-Jacques Annaud played on human emotion, and showed treachery and friendship in Fiennes character Danilov. He does everything to separate Vasiliy and Tanya and then when at the end he realizes he is wrong he helps Vasiliy determine where the German sniper is by sticking his head out of the window and taking a shot in the head.

As far as Acting is concerned, I think Ed Harris does a tremendous job of playing a high class skilled professional uncompromising killer! There is not much to Danilov's role and as far as Jude Law is concerned blue eyes curly hair and super white teeth is hardly anything like Russian soldiers looked. So the clean hair deep romantic looks and sparkly teeth I think hurt the movie overall a little bit, but because of the brilliant book on which the script is based this movie is a great flick to watch if you like war movies!