Add A Script To The Budget

Rating: 5/10 (31 July 2007)

Millions of dollars spent on sets, great actors, technical advisers, authentic weapons, equipment, etc....and it all went for nothing, for want of a decent script.
Stalingrad was one of the most dramatic battles in history, and it's worthy of more than one movie, and certainly deserves a saga better than this. It all seems like a tremendous waste of an opportunity. The setting is just too big for the story.
The cat and mouse game between snipers could have been pulled off with drama and suspense, but the scenes are clumsily handled. There is no buildup in tension. The German sniper is shown to be more skilled than the Russian hero, who seems to get by mainly on luck...there is no even matching of skill. The sniping scenes are short and ineffective, except for one in which the German holds the Russian at bay, which turns out to be the only exciting scene in the film, but only leaves you unsatisfied and looking for more.
I began to think it would have been much better not to have even shown the 'enemy' German...maybe just short glimpses of his hand or his eye, and make him out to be like a supernatural figure. Ed Harris has got the perfect look and acting ability, but he hasn't got much to work with here.
A major flaw in this film is the weird point of view. We are supposed to identify with the Russians, and yet, from the way they are portrayed, they are as bad or worse than the Germans. We never understand exactly what they are fighting for, or what would motivate them to defy the German invaders and not turn against Stalin themselves. From the comments of my Russian comrades on here, it appears this film is full of clichés.
This is another film in which scenes of combat just don't hold up. Brightly lit trains full of German troops with wide glass windows pull into a war zone. Germans and Russians shoot their own men for no discernible reason. Everything is portrayed as a big wild melee with no tactics.
Yes, the photography, sets, acting, are good, but the dialogue and overall clumsiness of the story add up to a very distressing and unsatisfying tale.