Not the best, but definitely has merit

Rating: 7/10 (14 April 2008)

I haven't watched many WWII films where we follow the Germans there are obvious reasons why such are not as often made as ones centered on Allied forces. This takes place where the title suggests, and therefore has some points that I've not seen in other features. The real goods of this almost all lie in the details which is not to say that the production values are anything short of amazing. The war scenes aren't bad, but they don't engage the viewer as much as others, they don't create the same amount of tension or an idea of what the situation was like for real, to the extent found elsewhere(although I will admit that I could be somewhat influenced by watching this so close to Saving Private Ryan). There's no Hollywood, as such, herein, but there are one or two "coincidences". The writing tends to be pretty good. The psychology isn't bad, and seems accurate. This doesn't particularly downplay any aspect of war(and does include a thing or two that aforementioned Spielberg piece did not), without anything ever being gratuitous. There is no celebration of violence(or anything else), and you are not going to get any warm, fuzzy feeling from a viewing of this. The fact that everyone speaks the actual language(not just German, also Russian) lends this a lot of credibility. The pacing could definitely use work, and the direction could be considerably more effective. The realism does have a noticeable hole or two, but it's also spot-on in places. The acting is mostly a positive aspect the only performer I recognized was Thomas Kretschman, and he does much better in his native tongue than in American, more convincing. I recommend this to any fan of war-movies, and find the seldom used backdrop and the information found within it to be commendable. 7/10