Totally awesome, man

Rating: 9/10 (28 August 2001)

At the risk of sounding jaded in my old age, I'm continuously amazed at the quality of reviews that can be summed in "Wow, man. Totally awesome!" or, "Man, this movie sucked." C'mon. We pay these guys salaries buying tickets and renting videos or DVDs. As such, we can do better by looking at the content and form of the film. And, this film is excellent in both form and content. I'm constantly intrigued by how the English can kick our butts in the acting game. I mean, Jude Law is Vassily Zaitsev (the name means 'rabbit' in Russian, BTW) and Ed Harris, getting to be one of our best, is Koenig (I prefer the German spelling for 'king'). Fiennes and Weisz are likewise superb as is Hoskins, a long way away from his initial exposure in Roger Rabbit. The theme of this film is chaos. And, if you read the defense of Stalingrad, that's what it was. Seeing the scenes in this wonderfully dark film reminded me of reading Simeonov's Dni I Nochi, 'Days and Nights,' one of the most accurately portrayed histories of the Red Army's defense of Stalingrad. It is a superb film and, gang, let's get beyond mere grunts of approval and disapproval of a fine film as this one is. Save it for the endless sequels of Teen-age Slice 'n Dice 25." Sorry to be such a curmudgeon, but I really loved this film and think it deserves much better attention.