Great idea for a film poorly handled.

Rating: 5/10 (9 December 2003)

I remember saying to my brother in 1994/95 that the story of the 2 snipers(or should I say 4) hunting each other down in wartorn Stalingrad would make an excellent film if it was done right, sadly this is not the film I had in my head. Give Wolfgang Petersen 20 actors, and permission to film in some godforsaken industrial wasteland in present day eastern Europe with a host of cheap extras and you would get the goods, i.e something intense, realistic and tightly edited. Instead we are treated to film by commity as boring, ineptly handled and inappropiate romance is injected into this film which drags the whole thing down, featuring the worst sex scene I have seen in a long time. What should have been a tight 80-90mins ends up over the 2 hour mark. As well as this the humour is dire, characters shallow and action scenes have no real tension. If you want an example of war films at their best check out "Beast of war", "Das boot" & "Stalingrad".