Trite, predictable, awful

Rating: Null/10 (5 August 2002)

A heinous waste of time. Other than a few very brief scenes they manage to make the Battle of Stalingrad, often described as the most horrific episode in the history of the world, seem "lovably rustic." For the middle 8/10 of the film you have no sense that people are starving, thousands are being slaughtered, the very existence of the Russian nation is at stake. They pay lip service to these facts, but all you see is the unspeakably juvenile love triangle between the three leads. If they want to show us "the human face of war" the least they can do is make the relationships slightly more complex than an episode of Blind Date. And the only civilians shown live in a wonderful little cellar that's spacious and comfortable enough to make most Manhattan residents jealous. Want an example of how bad and predictable the action sequences are? A:"Stay down." B:"Oh no, the planes are coming." A:"Don't move, the sniper will shoot you!" B: "We have to run, the planes are coming!" A:"Don't move! The Sniper!" B: "I must run!" If you don't see that B is going to get a bullet in the head at the end of this, then maybe you'll find this a gripping suspense film. The worst sin of the movie? Instead of showing us the struggle of two opposing soldiers set against the backdrop of a sweeping historical event, they make the historical event ALL about the two men, even saying (over and over and over) "Whichever sniper wins, that will decide the war!" Talk about delusions of grandeur, the struggle of tens of millions of people mean nothing against the fates of two men who have such rugged good looks and great agents.