Good but not great

Rating: 7/10 (24 January 2009)

There is a lot to recommend about this film that is essentially the story of the duel between a Russian and German sniper set against the backdrop of the Battle for Stalingrad in the Second World War. This is a well made movie that benefits from European direction and seems less bombastic than American made Second World War efforts and is all the better for it. There are good performances her as well especially by Rachel Weisz as the female lead Tania and Bob Hoskins is a fantastic supporting role as Kruschev. Joseph Fiennes is also very good as Danilov. My major problem with the movie is Jude Law. I just do not get the appeal of this actor. He seems to deliver the same performances in every movie I have seen him in, and for me this only worked in AI. This resulted in me not being able to invest in the lead character and I felt it also led to Ed Harris completely dominating there duel from an acting perspective (does he ever deliver a bad performance). This is a shame because the rest of the movie is excellent. Though I am not sure how much weight can be given to the historical accuracy (not that much from what I red on IMDb). In the end I enjoyed this film but Law puts me off wanting to watch this movie again unless there really was nothing else to watch.