Good Film But No Classic Epic

Rating: 7/10 (26 October 2002)

I liked ENEMY AT THE GATES , but its flaws are very obvious . First of all is Rachel Weisz who makes a very unconvincing Soviet heroine with a very distracting upper class English accent , I guess this is to make the film more marketable to a potential female audience along with the inclusion of a love triangle which is slightly unnecessary and underdeveloped ( Witness the scene where it looks like Danilov is going to have the hero arrested as an enemy of the state and this is never followed up ? ) and did we really need to have the inclusion of a sex scene ? These small problems spoil the film somewhat and stops it becoming a classic epic
Not to be negative I really did like this film for two reasons . First up is the portrayal of snipers . Once upon a time snipers were considered as being amongst an army`s bravest most competant warriors . This is still true today of course but media attention via such conflicts in Northern Ireland , the Balkans and the middle east and even recent events in America means " Sniper " is a word people associate with cold hearted murdering thugs and EATG rightly dispells this modern day myth. Secondly EATG shows us all something that is rarely seen to a western audience and that is the horror of the Eastern front during the Second world war . Hollywood would have us believe America won the second world war single handed but it was mainly the courage and sacrifice of the citizens of the USSR that was the major factor in the defeat of Hitler . The Soviet Union lost 30 million people during the war ( One in six of its citizens ) and just as many died through Stalin as through Hitler , something that is not forgotten by this film.
All in all a good film but one that is inferior to CROSS OF IRON a film that I absolutely adore and consider to be the best film to feature the second world war as its backdrop