this movie fundamentally sucks

Rating: 4/10 (8 June 2006)

My mistake was in reading so much history before seeing "Enemy At The Gates". To me it's just one more piece of Hollywood garbage dressed up as history. The movie would have you believe that the war hinged on the outcome of the duel between the snipers. It did NOT. Nor was there a Major Konig. There is no mention of such a person in any records of the German armed services, including Waffen SS. It was pure myth. And Hollywood, bumbling liar that it is, simply took the myth to new levels of absurdity.
Real German and Russian actors might have helped but I doubt it.
I give this "film" a 4 for paying some attention to smaller details. But subtract 6 for getting the basic history wrong.
Note that the movie totally ignores what was happening militarily outside of Stalingrad... the plans being drawn up for the encirclement of the 6th Army (operations Uranus, Saturn, Mars).
Snipers helped in the defeat of the Nazis but the word is *helped*. They were not the deciding factor.
To all Hollywood directors-- stay the h*ll out of the history genre. You stink at it.