Street fighting scenes are best

Rating: Null/10 (12 December 1999)

I was very excited when I first saw this movie on the shelf at the video store. I am a history buff, and I love WWII films. At last, I thought, they made a movie about the eastern front. How was it? Fair. It unfortunately has many shortcomings. The best scenes involve the mid stages of the battle, in the bombed out ruins of the city--although they don't explain to us that it was the Germans who bombed the city to ruins, making lots of places for Soviet soldiers and guerillas to hide. The scenes of woundings and amputations in the improvised sewer hospital are quite horrifying, also. My problem with the movie is its lack of details of the campaign. How did the German army get surrounded? The Soviets launched Operation "Uranus," but that is not explained in the film. Hitler's stubborness and unwillingness to let his soldiers surrender is also not explored very well, and this is a very significant aspect of the battle of Stalingrad. We also see the soldiers suffer, however, it is not done effectively enough. The film also doesn't explain why the battle of Stalingrad was so important--this film could have been the same almost anywhere on the eastern front, during winter. If you're interested in the war, then you might as well see it. Hopefully we will someday see a film from the Russian point of view of this battle.