A Little Too Slow For Me

Rating: Null/10 (13 September 2003)

I thought this was an okay film but was done in (as are many Hollywood films about historical events) by an preference for formula over true material. Why are directors and screenwriters reluctant to just tell the story they want to tell? I left this film feeling like I'd seen it years ago.

And for those who are curious. Vasily Zeitsef was a real person (though not quite exactly the character portrayed by Jude Law, who still did an excellent job). Tania Chernova was also a real person and their live affair actually happened (she was also a Russian-American and was a sniper in her own right, I can only wonder why screenwriters didn't run with a more accurate version of their story).
As for Major Koenig and the duel--no one really knows if this happened, the story comes completely from the Russian side, this could have been propoganda, pure and simple, though snipers in Stalingrad definately fought it out with each other. Oh, and Sasha was a real boy but played no role in the sniper events (the writers wrote him in, I guess, to make the film more dramatic).