Twaddle

Rating: 4/10 (12 May 2009)

This movie starts off strong, as it depicts the absolutely hellish city that Stalingrad became in probably the most horrific battle in history. Of course a lot of the events being portrayed did not actually happen at Stalingrad but instead were amalgamations of various events that happened during the German Russian war during WWII. At first the Russians were totally unprepared and under equipped, there were reports of soldiers being sent to the front lines without weapons or ammo. However, at this point the Russians were far better organized.
Then we have Jude Law as the frightened little Russian soldier being sent to war. Did not actually buy it, in fact I didn't buy hardly any of the characters, except for perhaps Ed Harris, who made a great Nazi, typical cold and efficient. Rachel Weisz may have the brows to play Russian, but what's with all the cockney accents? Anyway, the movie starts from somewhat realistic (forgiving the inaccuracies) and quickly goes downhill. The dialogue is terrible and is extremely blunt and unsophisticated. There are all these fake tensions that are created that don't really go anywhere. Everyone looks far too pretty and happy, with just the right amount of makeup dirt applied for that semi realistic look. These people were starving for pete's sake, they were in horrible conditions.
Anyway, back to the historical inaccuracies. I realize that a movie is a movie and not a documentary, yet if you making a movie about real people and real events then you have a certain duty to portray those events with some accuracy. After all, most people are not going to see this movie to see Rachel Weisz (as pretty as she is) and Jude Law make out, they are probably somewhat interested in the story of two snipers facing off against each other. At that level the movie is pretty good, but once again pretty far fetched and absurd. Ed Harris' death isn't even that exciting, for such a great sniper he dies in a really stupid way. In between we have a lot of inane dialogue and bad acting. Oh well, nice try.