Could have been great, but disappoints.

Rating: Null/10 (19 March 2001)

This film opened this weekend in the UK, and I had been eagerly awaiting it's release, being a huge fan of the genre. I was very excited about the prospect of a film portraying the real story of the battle of Stalingrad, complete with gritty drama and the benefit of the realism of recent films like Saving Private Ryan'. I had read some of the slightly critical reviews from the US where it had been showing for some weeks, but was sure that I would love it anyway. After seeing the film I have to say I agree with the detractors! It is a huge disappointment, it could have been so much, but fails to live up to it's potential.
The first half-hour of the film is worthy of the subject, and portrays the huge drama and sacrifice of the battle. The young Russian soldiers are forced at gunpoint to walk towards the German guns with no weapons, and no chance of survival, just to die as a useless waste. The Russians still used WWI tactics and only their sheer numbers won the day for them.

The film then quickly descends into a shambolic attempt to make us care about a Russian sniper (who let's face it are not very heroic figures anyway), and the love triangle he gets caught up in. The acting in some of the scenes is absolutely abysmal. I found myself cringing at some of the cheesy lines, which sounded like the actors were reading them off an auto-cue. I have to agree with the US reviewers who criticise the accents of the actors. I thought it wouldn't bother me as I am used to seeing films where Germans and Russians talk with American accents, so I though I wouldn't notice the English accents. But I have to say that even as an Englishman I thought the accents were simply laughable. Especially Jude Law who had a slightly cockney twang to his accent, presumably to portray the fact that he was more working class than Joseph Fiennes who spoke with an Oxbridge accent. The only actors who come through unscathed are Bob Hoskins in his passable portrayal of Krushchev, and Ed Harris as Major Konig who is by far the best performer in the film. For some reason a German with an American accent is more believable than a Russian with a cockney accent! When two of the main characters who we are supposed to care about are killed, it is completely unmoving. The director fails to make us care about these people.
It would have been a far better story if it continued to concentrate on the heroism of the ordinary Russian soldiers, or the suffering of the cut-off German army (which is never mentioned in the film). If you want to really find out about the Eastern Front my advice is track down the German made film Stalingrad' (made by the Das Boot' team) which although lower budget is a far better portrayal. Even Iron Cross' starring James Coburn is better!