Might seem ok, if you're not familiar with real history.

Rating: Null/10 (8 January 2004)

The only plausible reason for this movie's existence is the director's ego.
Why do I say this? I find it remarkable that he would find the actual events surrounding the battle of Stalingrad so un-compelling that he would choose to invent his own reality. The movie is called enemy at the gates suggesting the enormous epic battle of Stalingrad, but this is not to be. It would have been better to name it the duel, as that is the real focus of the movie. By showing the battle in the very beginning, the movie is trying to have it both ways, but it can't. By the middle you might forget that there are millions of people involved on both sides, tanks on the ground, planes in the air, boats in the river. Instead you might think the red army did not have a single tank or plane after watching this movie.
Going into the battle Annaud aims for a sense of dread, but misunderstands the motivations of the characters. Among the main things is that Russian soldiers actually WANTED to go to the front lines. Something Annaud apparently can't fathom. Kids would run away from home and lie about their age. Teens that finished school went off for military training. Men left their families to do their duty. Few doubted that the war would be won, it was simply a matter of when. When the troops arrive at the shore of the broken city, Annaud again misfires. The soldiers did not have a shortage of weapons. This was already the middle of the war, factories were working day and night, with even tractor factories making tanks. Nor were the men turning back. It was not an option, there was nowhere to fall back. They knew that if they didn't hold on the war could be lost. When you are fighting for the survival of your home you don't need any more motivation then that. Let's not forget that the soldiers are fighting for their own soil. What Annaud was probably thinking of was a "ShtrafBat" a battalion made of soldiers accused or cowardice or other often false accusations. These were literally used to clear minefields by marching through them! These did have NKVD machine gunners shooting anyone that turned back. This is something more gruesome then anything Annaud imagined, but this was usually not the case for regular troops.
Moving on, there's absolutely nothing wrong with focusing on the sniper battle, it's extremely compelling. However Annaud would almost have you believe it had a key importance to the battle itself, which it couldn't have. It's merely a vignette, though a really fascinating one. Nor was Zaitsev alone. The newspapers would take ANY event they considered significant and spread the news all over the country. The idea that Zaitsev was used as some sort of motivation for not losing the war is therefore ludicrous.
What it boils down to is that the movie might have been good had Annaud not delved into the bigger picture and became mired in things he didn't understand. The sniper battle itself is at times captivating. Had the movie narrowed the focus to the two opposing snipers themselves it might have been great. Adding on the love story and trying to comment on everything from politics to tactics bogged it down. Annaud would have done better to simply bring a handful of old Russian war movies to western screens, for they have covered this all before, and covered it better.