Enemy at What Gates?

Rating: 9/10 (17 May 2003)

Spoilers Herein.

The first thing about this movie is that the title has no relevance at all to anything that transgresses in the movie. Enemy at what Gates? Both snipers are deep in the heart of Stalingrad. Neither one has a hard time getting there. Could this refer to the Nazis? They have already overrun much of the city at the start of the movie, so this does not explain that either. Anyway, that is not extremely important.
If you are a historian, or care that movies are true to the actual events, this is probably not the movie for you. Apparently, at least in this movie, the only thing that happened in Stalingrad was that a Soviet sniper killed a bunch of German officers, so they sent in a sniper of their own to take out the Soviet sniper, but not anyone else. Excepting the first scene of the movie, you would not have known that a war was taking place in the city. Only one bombing run by the Nazis, and only one large scale battle leaves the viewer wondering if this is actually a war movie, or if it was just Assassins remade in a different time period.
That being said, the movie has its tense moments. Surprisingly little happens for a 2 1/2 hour movie, but this really isn't noticed during the viewing, this is only thought of after seeing it. The sniper battles are entertaining as well. The viewer gets to see the mental process and the mind games that take place between the two outstanding marksmen.
This movie does have one of the least believable sex scenes in history. First of all, it was somewhat unnecessary to the plot of the movie. The audience already understood that Soviet sniper guy and Rachel Weisz are in love, but then they go and have sex in the midst of hundreds of sleeping people in a secret underground barricks.
All of this having been said, this movie was surprisingly enjoyable, despite all of its flaws. If you can put aside the fact that it is not all that historically accurate, and lacks any real prescence of a war, you should enjoy the movie.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5