A very good war film set in a battle not familiar with many people.

Rating: 7/10 (3 March 2006)

In the of winter 1942 inside a Russian city called Stalingrad the biggest land battle of history was taking place,This is the setting for the film "Enamy at the gates".
"Enemy at the gates"tells the story of a young freshly enlisted red army solider called Vasili Zaitsev played by Jude Law. From the start we follow the young Russian's journey across southern Russia to the burned out city of Stalingrad,now partly occuiped by the advancing German army wanting to take over Russia.There awaiting him and his fellow comrades are red army officers eager to get him killed on one side and the German army on the other lying in wait to kill him,(These poor lad's didn't stand a chance!).As it turns out Vasili is a crack shot with a rifle and with the help of his new found friend Danilov who is a army political officer Vasili is transfered to snipper division and his name and how many German officers he pick's off day by day is printed then expanded throughout Russia for propaganda purposes.
Danilov play's Zaitsev up as a national hero bringing some much needed hope into the heart's of the Russian people.Understandably the German high command are a bit p*s*ed off with this young talented Russian and his snipper division picking off their officers so they decided to send in their own crack shot a man by the name of major Konig to hunt and kill Vasili and his snipper platoon. So what we get is a cat and mouse chase through a devastated Stalingrad.In this nightmare setting Vasili falls in love and vis-versa with a young female solider callled Tania played by Rachel Weisz,concurrently so does Danilov which cause's tension between the boy's,Danilov wanting Vasili out of the way sends him on more and more suicide mission's ,All this lead to a grand finale between Zaitsev and Konig. The battle scene's are very gritty and authentic plus they are shown true to the battle as a no win situation's for both side's.The director use's lots of close up shots in the duals between the snippers capturing the tension and nerve that is with them as they lie in wait for the next kill,Theirs an excellent scene in the film were the snippers are trapped in a building under target from each other and at the same trying to survive a aerial bombardment from the German bombers.
The cast which unglued Ed Harris as Major Konig,Josegh Fiennes as Danilov and a very resembling with the help of make-up Bob Hoskins as Nikita Khrushev.All of them including Jude,Rachel and the support cast give applauseable poformance's in their role's and bring the characters to life.
This is a well made picture and a breath of fresh air to audience's in the west used to seeing WW2 movie from an American or British point of view,Although it doesn't totally capture the true horror of what the Germans and Russians went through in the east(no film could)it does a pretty decent job never the less and credit must go to the film makers and film company for being brave enough to make and finance a war movie(including a love story as well)that doesn't involve the US marine's.