Awkward

Rating: Null/10 (6 September 2002)

Eastenders at war. Or so it sounds like during the first half of this movie, where even Bob Hoskins turns up as Nikita Khrushchev.
It's really irritating that British movies and series often signpost the working class origin of Russian communists by giving them regional British accents. The problem with that is that regional accents are extremely peculiar to a specific region, and rather than make the actors sound more Russian or authentic, it grates and irritates and disorients. I never knew that Khrushchev was a Cockney. Also, Ron Perlman is dubbed over with what sounds like an Australian accent. G'day to you too, comrade. You can almost hear the producers think - we have to get an American actor in here, or it won't sell in the US. Which is ok, because none of them except a few extras are Russians anyway.

I find this really distracting, rather than "authentic". Their accents would have been less distracting if they'd been more neutral. The second half of the film focuses more on sniping and Ed Harris is pretty good as the German aristocrat sniper who is sent to take out Zaitsev.
Finally a movie about WWII from the pov of the Russians, who took the brunt of the German assault and without whose resistance, WWII wouldn't have been won and nazism would have triumphed.