Hugely efficient war movie, with thorough authenticity

Rating: 8/10 (7 July 2016)

This effective movie has a great, epic background over which to play the story - the battle of Stalingrad in World War II, which left the city in smouldering ruins and hundreds of soldiers (on both sides) dead. Like with most modern blockbusters, the budget is big (the biggest in Europe, it has been said), and there are plenty of authentic bombing raids and gun battles in this action-packed movie which only slightly drags towards the end. CGI fighters spit bombs down on to the ruined streets and the smoke from dozens of explosions fills the sky to great effect in some truly breath-taking battle sequences. The film doesn't shy away from the violence either, preferring to show in graphic detail the sight of bullets erupting through bodies and exploding heads, blood everywhere, particularly in a disturbingly realistic scene showing enemy fire peppering a group of soldiers huddled together on a boat.
Over this intense background plays a story that is in parts a thriller, a tragedy, and a romance. The various plot strands are mingled perfectly to make one smooth-running film as a whole with well-drawn characters you can really care about. In particular, Jude Law gives a convincing portrayal of an innocent farmer boy, initially terrified out of his life when he is thrown headlong into battle, and gradually turning into a war hero through the propaganda of his friend Danilov (an understated and effective turn from Joseph Fiennes).
The initial sequence in which Law proves his worth as a sniper is an excellently-shot piece of action. Into the story comes Rachel Weisz, as the love interest, a female Russian soldier, and there's even a love triangle thrown in there too for good measure between her, Law and Fiennes. However, most scenes are stolen by Ed Harris (looking very much like Anton Diffring) as Major Konig, a German war hero and top-notch sniper who engages in some tense and suspenseful cat-and-mouse games in the rubble of Stalingrad, sequences which are the best in the movie. Good support comes from a near-unrecognisable Bob Hoskins as Khrushchev, and Ron Perlman as a fellow sniper with a mouth full of metal teeth.
ENEMY AT THE GATES is a well-made and intelligent blockbuster, convincingly portraying the realism of the war, peppered with many memorable scenes such as the macabre image of a young boy hanging from ruins on the horizon. Although the outcome is to be expected, the journey there is an eventful and often surprising one and never less than watchable. A shame that all modern blockbusters aren't often as intelligently scripted or acted as this film is.