Europe does Hollywood - and makes all the same mistakes

Rating: 5/10 (1 June 2002)

A European film which aims to crack the American market but ends up making almost all of Hollywood's mistakes. The concept is a great one: a lowly Russian sniper and an intellectual propagandist together inspire the Red Army to repel the Germans from Stalingrad and effectively stop Hitler in his tracks. It begins well enough with a spectacular and bloody crossing of the Volga, and a very efficient introduction of Danilov (Fiennes) and Vassili (Law). But it's all downhill from there. The problem is a wandering screenplay which collapses under the weight of an utterly redundant love story involving the beautiful, talented and horribly miscast Rachel Weisz. With their abrupt changes in lighting and clunky editing, many of the romantic scenes appear to have been shot and inserted later, probably after preview screenings failed to ignite the American female audience. If so, we can blame the producers more that the writers. The whole film might have been better if the rivalry between Danilov and Vassili had centered on their differing social positions, and not their shared love of a woman. In doing so, it could have articulated the internal contradictions of Russia and neatly foreshadowed the social envy which ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. A few scenes and vestigial lines of dialogue suggest this may have been the thrust of the original screenplay, and it's a pity this theme was jettisoned to make way for a soggy, soap-opera romance. Overall, this was a very disappointing film which had me wondering how much better it could have been in the hands of someone like Nikita Mikhalkov (Burnt by the Sun') and with a Russian and German cast. But there was one thing they did get right: unlike so many recent films, the use of CGI in the battle scenes was thoughtful, controlled and highly effective. Well done, Double Negative and Richard Bain!