Who cares about total historical details accuracy ?

Rating: 7/10 (24 November 2006)

To answer to dannykip, maybe the officers did not shoot their retreating men as is shown in the film but it has happened more than one time. Please read the book of Rodric BRAITHWAITE "Moscou, 1941, a city and its people at war". he talks about this at length. And the fact that they did not have a rifle for each man is also documented in this book. Maybe it was true of 1941 and not of 1942-1943 (the events shown in the film), but what was important to do was to show the spirit of what happened on the Russian front and in the ranks of the Red Army. Art (here, movies) has the right to not be totally accurate in its performances. It is not a documentary. If you wish to see a documentary, there are plenty ! I am quite astonished to see the narrow-minded viewpoints (not talking about you dannykip) shown by amateur critics sometimes. By the way, I think there are too many critics and not enough viewers !
Enjoy a movie or do not enjoy it, but please do not try to become an expert in movies critics. Say what you like and what you did not like and that's already good.
As far as I am concerned, I appreciated the movie fairly well and I would recommend it to my friends.
Joseph Fiennes is much more convincing than in Shakespeare in love and Ed Harris looks quite German with his icy blue eyes. Question: why did they change Jude Laws' hair ? Didn't they had blond-haired people in the bloody Red Army ?
I also liked the battle scenes over the river. One of them is a real Turner.