Plenty to snipe at

Rating: 5/10 (30 April 2011)

This film tries to deal with a lot of very big themes: Conflict, Romance, Rivalry, Loyalty, Self sacrifice etc, but unfortunately its elements do not gel and consequently it is a hotchpotch of ideas, poorly developed. Law's childhood experiences are shown in flashback at length then disappear without much relevance to the story, as are the brief mentions of Fiennes Jewishness or his letter rebuking Law among other things. On the other hand some things are hammered in, such as (the impossibly perfect) Rachel Weicz's high intelligence. We need to be told it again and again because we never see it. Fiennes character does somersaults, being at times, loyal then treacherous. I guess there is a point to this, in saying that love makes someone act out of character but it is not well enough developed to be convincing. Likewise the boy Sasha, as written, fails to convince; nor does his briefly appearing mother In the odd scene where she is told her son has gone over to the enemy. I'm guessing the script was trying to make some point here but I just did not get it.
Nazis v commies can hardly have been an easy sell. It is hard to deal with the clash of two such unpleasant totalitarian ideologies as these without the movie-goer thinking "I hope they both lose!" Obviously the film makers tried to inject as much humanity as possible and probably veers to much into Mills and Boon territory at times ("He was a shepherd boy sniper and she was the intelligent courageous woman he loved!"). Since these days Romance means love making, a sex scene is required and is rather tacky.
While I understand that this is a Hollywood fantasy-land (those looking for historical accuracy should look elsewhere) but the set and general atmosphere resembles a PC game. I would not be surprised actually it was made into one. The cityscape is more of a conquered city with a few militants holding out than one at a state of war. Apart from the opening, and a few bombing raids, no real fighting is seen, merely this duel of the rather gentlemanly snipers.
Horner's music too is a self conscious effort to sound important, the main theme having more than a hint of Shindler's List about it.