Better than average-Yet So Much Wasted Potential

Rating: 7/10 (19 August 2001)

It made headlines. It made bucks. (The real measure of success, I suppose for Hollywood poobahs). ENEMY AT THE GATES made for an interesting story, but only so long as the film stayed running. It could have been memorable, but it just turned out to be another night at the movies. What a shame.
The six month siege of Stalingrad was historically such a horrendous conflagration, one could understand the producers wanting to keep the scope small in perspective. Yet, the many aspects of suffering by its citizenry was overlooked. One never got the feel or sense of suffering, of the inhabitants. The thousands who perished, not from German bullets or bombs, but simply starvation. This is never explored. The refugees or people who tried to leave the city, en masse. From this film's very limited point of view, Stalingrad is empty, except for Ed and Jude, and company.

The performances were earnest and above average, except for Bob Hoskin' s Nikita Kruschev. The normally superb Hoskins played Kruschev poorly, i.e. an utter boob. It was hard to stifle a laugh. "...Lose yourself!" indeed. Ed Harris steals the show, as the aristocratic Major Konig, just by the subtlety of his performance. Three quarters through the movie, unfortunately, he jumps into hyper-nasty German mode (a characterization seen in zillions of movies) and the cliche plays out. I'm surprised he didn't stop into a bomb shelter to mow down a thousand babushkas, before meeting up for his final showdown with Vassili. Any personal sense of honor the character possessed went out the window, to prop up a cliche.
If one is looking for a serious sense of a historical event, skip this one. Try STALINGRAD, a German movie about this event (see prior review), which might bring the overall horror of Stalingrad into view. ENEMY AT THE GATE, while above average and recommended, came off more like HIGH NOON without the horses.