A good core concept marred by uneven acting and bad subplot

Rating: 4/10 (11 May 2001)

Enemy at the Gates tells the small story of Vassili Zaitsev, a Soviet marksman, inside the larger stories of the Battle of Stalingrad and World War II.
It is a rare WWII film in that the Americans are not involved and the Soviets are the heroes.
It is nitpicking, however, the filmmakers went to so much trouble to depict the violence so realistically that it is jarring that everybody speaks English! This is aimed at mainstream audiences and they would not have attended if the Russians spoke Russian and the Germans spoke German. It was weird to see a memo dictated in English magically appear as Russian on paper. It was also unintentionally funny.
The Soviets use the exploits of Zaitsev as a propaganda tool so effectively that the Germans are forced to bring their own expert marksman. The cat and mouse game between the two snipers is effective and interesting. If the filmmakers had concentrated on that they could have had an effective and interesting movie. Not to mention a much shorter one than the dragging 131 minutes they ended up with.
Instead, in a move that feels like a decision by committee, they graft on a boring sub plot about a romantic triangle that is poorly done and detracts from the suspense the sniper vs. sniper was building.
Jude Law , who looks and sounds very British, fails to sell himself as a "sheperd boy from the Urals". Bob Hoskins is a farce as a cockney Krushchev and Rachel Weisz is beautiful but superfluous and had the unfortunate fate of delivering the stupidest lines in the movie. Only Ed Harris does a solid acting job.
In the end you take a good concept , dilute with uneven acting and accents, graft on a boring and unnecessary sub plot and you have a forgettable experience.
Rated 4 of 10 - primarily on the strength of Ed Harris and the sniper vs. sniper confrontation.