Top German and Soviet snipers hunt each other amid the ruins of Stalingrad.

Rating: 6/10 (29 October 2005)

I enjoyed most of Enemy at the Gates, but was disappointed by the conclusion. SPOILER BELOW! The story of how Vasily Zaitsev became a national hero is told well against the backdrop of the gruesome Battle for Stalingrad. The apocryphal story of Heinz Thorvald / Major Koenig's hunt for Zaitsev is the focal point of the movie.
This plot device creates a number of unbelievable situations (e.g., three snipers being sent to clear a building, instead of a squad of regular infantry), but the storyteller manages to build suspense and keep it entertaining.
The three leads (Law, Harris, and Weizs) all turn in excellent performances, as do Joseph Fiennes as Danilov, and the boy playing Sasha. I found myself feeling sympathy for both Zaitsev and Koenig, unusual considering that they were both fighting for despicable regimes whose barbarity is depicted unsparingly. The film accurately shows the kind of hideous stuff that happens in war without any glorification or sentiment. Like the characters, you really would rather be somewhere else.
Anyone who has done any shooting will be bothered by certain technical flaws, i.e., hitting a horizontal cable at 100 meters is virtually impossible because the sniper would have to get the range exactly right. Even if he managed to aim on target, those type of sniper rifles do not group so tightly that you could hit a cable without a lucky shot. Also, Zaitsev's offhand shot at Koenig after he gets away from the stove would be unlikely to hit anything. But if it hit his hand, the bullet would break bone and sever a tendon, crippling his hand, before piercing the stock of the rifle entirely, with the remains of the bullet ripping a hole in Koenig's guts. If the metal frame of the rifle stopped it, it would still break ribs -- full sized rifle rounds have a lot of energy.
But the ending really disappointed. After Danilov is slain, if Zaitsev had managed a lucky shot into Koenig's blind, this would have preserved a sense of reality. But for Koenig, drawn as patient, methodical, never makes a mistake, to leave his hide and expose himself, and for Zaitsev to do the same and take him with an offhand shot at pistol range, was just beyond loony. Both characters violated who they were in the film. This was too Hollywood "High Noon" for a film depicting otherwise believable people.
Also Koenig, a regular Wehrmacht officer from an upper class family, not some Gestapo scumbag, would never hang Sasha for passing information that he fully expected him to give to the other side. At most he would take away his chocolate and tell him to get lost.
But Zaitsev got the girl at the end, so I could smile. "Enemy" was entertaining, but the conclusion did not match the quality of most of the film.