A Powerful Film About Human Understanding Of Inhuman Conflict

Rating: 9/10 (9 October 2012)

Enemy at the Gates is a war film starring Joseph Fiennes, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Bob Hoskins and Ed Harris.The story is set during the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II.The film's title is taken from William Craig's 1973 nonfiction book Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad, which describes the events surrounding the Battle of Stalingrad from 1942–1943.
The film is based on a duel mentioned in the book that developed between Soviet sniper Vasily Zaitsev,a marksman from the Urals who is transported to Stalingrad in 1942, and a master German sniper, Major Koenig, an expert German sniper who is determined to eliminate his formidable opponent by any means necessary.Meanwhile, Vasily has joined forces with Danilov, a young Russian political adversary, who is impressed by his skills and raises his profile in the Soviet Union. Both become involved with Tanya, whose Jewish parents have been captured by the Germans and have forced her to take up with the men on a sniper expedition.Then Koenig and Vassily begin to develop traps for each other, until fate inevitably must bring the two sharpshooters together.
It generally succeeds at telling a truly heroic story, providing yet another vehicle to showcase the talents of Law and Harris, and of their supporting cast.Atmospheric and thrilling, it gets the look and feel of war right. However, the love story seems out of place as it the love triangle happens to be a poor subplot in this war film.But nevertheless,its theme of human understanding of an inhuman conflict that gives it so much power despite its flaws and defects.