Pointless Drama

Rating: 5/10 (15 February 2015)

Seeing that 'Enemy at the Gates' features the rarely shown WWII Red Army, I was hoping that it would take a really interesting and thought-provoking look on the war by overcoming the usual Soviet stereotypes and revealing Soviet soldiers and people's beliefs at the time. However, it failed to do any of those things and instead provided us with a cheesy and cliché portrait of war.
Right from the beginning, despite the overwhelming battle scenes, you can already feel that there's something not right: the main characters played by Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, and Joseph Fiennes look too clean and too beautiful compared to their supporting cast and surroundings. Jude Law, in particular, with his perfectly gelled hair and his dreamy blue eyes, looks more like a boy-band member than a soldier. And this image indeed foretells the rest of the movie: it wastes too much time on the cheesy love triangle between the main characters and greatly ruins the tension of the movie. I really wish they could have spent all that time on actually exploring the war and the Red Army, which is instead portrayed in a very cliché and over-the-top way.
Then there is the battle between Jude Law and Ed Harris' characters. Though it does seems gripping at times, mainly because there have not been a lot of movies focusing on snipers, it is ultimately damaged by bad editing and poor characterization. Sequences are usually cut short with details skipped over, making things seem much less dangerous and leaving characters' emotions not fully explored. And Ed Harris' character is just far too bland.
Finally, the biggest problem in my opinion is that characters often seem ridiculously oblivious. For example, there's a scene where Rachel Weisz's character crawls through a vent and finds herself directly above the German base, but somehow, none of the Russians ever decide to use that to their advantages. Or like how the Russians have a spy that has direct contact with Ed Harris's character but only decide to use him after some of their important members have been killed.
In conclusion, 'Enemy at the Gates' never feels like it's really going anywhere, and is a total waste of its interesting settings.