Exciting Realistic Battle Scenes

Rating: 7/10 (27 October 2001)

"Enemy at the Gates" is a WWII drama that takes place during the German siege of Stalingrad in 1942. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud stages realistic and convincing battle scenes amid the ruins of a great city. The scenes where the peasant soldiers are forced into a suicidal battle with few arms is particularly gruesome and unforgettable.
From the ranks of the peasant soldiers comes a deadly sharpshooter named Vassili,(Jude Law) who through a fateful encounter meets an influential Russian information officer, Danilov (Joseph Fiennes)who in turn brings his particular talents to the attention of Nikita Khrushchev (Bob Hoskins). Vassili is then developed into a national hero for his exploits as a propaganda measure to improve the morale of the Russian people. The Germans counter with their own sharpshooter Major Konig (Ed Harris) who is sent in to take out Vassili.
The rest of the movie is essentially a cat and mouse game between Law and Harris. A totally unnecessary love triangle develops between Vasilli, Danilov and Tania (Rachel Weisz). Law and Weisz give us a graphic demonstration of "love among the ruins" along the way.
Law conveys too much baby-faced innocence to be convincing as a cold-blooded assassin. Harris, on the other hand, is thoroughly believable in his role. He unfortunately has to perform the requisite evil German act near the end of the story, which I thought was totally unnecessary for his character within the context of the story. Fiennes is good as the ambitious Danilov but Weisz is not believable as a female scholar/sharpshooter. Hoskins does a nice turn as the overbearing Khrushchev. Ron Perlman has a brief bit as Koulikov another Russian sharpshooter.
"Enemy at the Gates" is good war movie. The conflict between the Law and Harris characters is riveting. But the movie suffers with the love story and the contrived "happily ever after" Hollywood ending.