Enemy at the Gates
Tags: violence, suspenseful, murder, flashback

Plot synopsis:
In 1942, following the invasion of the Soviet Union the year before, Vasily Zaitsev (Jude Law), a shepherd from the Ural Mountains who is now a soldier in the Red Army, finds himself on the front lines of the Battle of Stalingrad. Forced into a suicidal charge by barrier troops against the invading Germans, he uses impressive marksmanship skills—taught to him at a young age by his grandfather—to save himself and commissar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes).
Nikita Khrushchev (Bob Hoskins) arrives in Stalingrad to coordinate the city's defences and demands ideas to improve morale. Danilov, now a senior lieutenant, suggests that the people need figures to idolise and give them hope, and publishes tales of Vasily's exploits in the army's newspaper that paint him as a national hero and propaganda icon. Vasily is transferred to the sniper division, and he and Danilov become friends. They also both become romantically interested in Tania Chernova (Rachel Weisz), a citizen of Stalingrad who has become a private in the local militia. Danilov has her transferred to an intelligence unit away from the battlefield.
With the Soviet snipers taking an increasing toll on the German forces, German Major Erwin König (Ed Harris) is deployed to Stalingrad to take out Vasily and thus crush Soviet morale. A renowned marksman and head of the German Army sniper school at Zossen, he lures Vasily into a trap and kills two of his fellow snipers, but Vasily manages to escape. When the Red Army command learns of König's mission, they dispatch König's former student Koulikov (Ron Perlman) to help Vasily kill him. König, however, outmaneuvers Koulikov and kills him with a very skillful shot, shaking Vasily's spirits considerably. Khrushchev pressures Danilov to bring the sniper standoff to a conclusion.
Sacha, a young Soviet boy, volunteers to act as a double agent by passing König false information about Vasily's whereabouts, thus giving Vasily a chance to ambush the major. Vasily sets a trap for König and manages to wound him, but during a second attempt Vasily falls asleep after many sleepless hours and his sniper log is stolen by a looting German soldier. The German command takes the log as evidence of Vasily's death and plans to send König home, but König does not believe Vasily is dead. The commanding German general takes König's dog tags to prevent Russian propaganda from profiting if König is killed. König also gives the general a War Merit Cross that was posthumously awarded to König's son, who as a lieutenant in the 116th infantry division was killed in the early days of the Battle for Stalingrad. König tells Sasha where König will be next, suspecting that the boy will tell Vasily. Tania and Vasily have meanwhile fallen in love and have sex in the Russian barracks at night. The jealous Danilov disparages Vasily in a letter to his superiors.
König spots Tania and Vasily waiting for him at his next ambush spot, confirming his suspicions about Sasha. He then kills the boy and hangs his body off a pole to bait Vasily. Vasily vows to kill König, and sends Tania and Danilov to evacuate Sasha's mother (Eva Mattes) from the city, but Tania is wounded by shrapnel en route to the evacuation boats. Thinking she is dead, Danilov regrets his jealousy of Vasily and expresses disenchantment for his previous ardency of the Communist cause. Finding Vasily waiting to ambush König, Danilov intentionally exposes himself in order to provoke König into shooting him and revealing his hidden position. Thinking that he has killed Vasily, König goes to inspect the body, but realizes too late that he has fallen into a trap and is in Vasily's sights. He turns to face Vasily and takes off his hat, after which Vasily kills him. Two months later, after Stalingrad has been liberated and the German forces have surrendered, Vasily finds Tania recovering in a field hospital.

Review: More important is the masterful manner of speech of the actors - Bob Hoskins' gutteral exultations as Ukrainian potato farmer Nikita Krushchev; Joseph Fiennes' pompous and proud intonations as the political officer; Jude Law's common man for the peasant turned soldier; Ed Harris with the clipped and crisp tones of a German officer.This is my pick for the best film of the year so far (August).
Of course, Enemy At The Gates comes off as being somewhat fantastic due to its attempt to balance entertainment with historical fact, and it came as a surprise to me to learn that Sergeant Vassili Zaitsev was a real person (whose sniper rifle is still an exhibit in a Russian museum), but this makes it all the more entertaining to watch.A lot of historians have it that the battle of Stalingrad was the most unpleasant one fought during the second World War, and this film's set design and cinematography capture that impeccably.
In "Enemy at the Gates," the future of the greatest battle of World War II, would be decided between a young Russian sniper and an aristocratic sharpshooter from Germany sent to kill him Jude Law and Ed Harris sit for hours waiting for the right moment It was a duel set in the siege of Stalingrad Stalingrad was one of the biggest and bloodiest battles of World War II, and in the midst of this huge battle, these two soldiers were hunting each other down The film opens with the harrowing transport of thousand of Russian soldiers across the Volga River to Stalingrad The recruits were packed onto steamers, barges, whatever they could find to ferry them across the river All that under a deluge of shells, bombs and explosions By the time Vassili arrives to Stalingrad, the Nazis have a distinct edge, and Soviet morale is at an all-time low Leading the Russians in their seemingly futile defense is Nikita Kruschev, played by Bob Hoskins The Germans, at that time, were overrunning the place and the Russians were in an appalling state It was the most awful battle of the war Joseph Fiennes plays Danilov, an idealistic Russian officer who passionately speaks about his belief in getting the troops to turn the grave situation in Stalingrad around He finds the perfect inspiration in Vassili Rachel Weisz plays a young woman who volunteers to help in the war effort She's literally protecting the people she grew up with When she meets Vassili, he just has a natural intelligence, a natural instinct Jude Law is remarkable as the young sharpshooter Vassili Zaitsev who conveyed both humanity and intensity There's such a fierce intelligence and liveliness in his eyes He can also be very quiet and internal Vassili found the complexity within the silence and stillness In fact to be a sniper is very much about a man of action through stillness Vassili represented the ultimate hero, the symbol of someone who could instill hope and belief in victory amongst the troops, because his skills as a sniper were unparalleled Ed Harris played Major Konig, the German sharpshooter sent to hunt down Vassili He knows that Vassili was picking off German officers with some regularity, and was becoming a folk hero for the Russian soldiers as well as the Russian populace...
He decided to eliminate him The casting of Ed Harris opposite Jude Law resulted in a striking visual link between their characters They both have these unbelievably penetrating blue eyes And director Jean-Jacques Annaud began to see the duel through their eyes And one of the first shots of Ed Harris was a close-up of his blue eyes Annaud painted the tensions very clearly and concentrated purely on the eyes of the Jude Law and Harris and, of course, on their rifles and how they were hidden and what they were doing Basically, the core of his camera is the duel of their eyes, duel of men, duel of snipers, therefore a confrontation of people that scan the surrounding buildings, and try to decipher what they see.
The film follows a young and highly talented Russian sniper from the Urals, Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law - "eXistenZ", "The Talented Mr. Ripley"), who gains national fame from the help of Danilov (Joesph Fiennes - "Shakespeare in Love"), a propoganda officer and his true love and fellow sniper, Tania (Rachael Weisz), who is also flirting with Danilov.However, the Germans have an ace sniper of their own in Erwin Koning (Ed Harris - "Pollock"), a seasoned and out-spoken Major who comes to Stalingrad only to pick off Vassili.
I won't say how it's done, but the final confrontation is a genuine nail-bitter.All of the performances here are powerhouse and that includes Bob Hoskins as Nikita Kruschev, a snarling and impatient man and Ron Perlman, who portrays Koulikov, a lieutenant whose teeth are all metal and serves as a guide for Vassili.Robert Frassie ("Ronin") handles the movie's photography with care and the appearrence of Stalingrad itself reminded me heavily of the war-torn cities shown in Spielsburg's "Saving Private Ryan" and Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket".
The battle of Stalingrad(Leningrad is modern St. Petersburg up north, Stalingrad is Volgograd in Russia's south) has never before been so knowingly destroyed and revised to demonize and smear the country that won the war in Europe, and helped to fight and defeat Japan before it attacked the US in 1938-39.My family, hometown, and countrymen have never been so insulted in their fight for survival.The movie better describes a WW1 situation on the Eastern Front, not WW2, the USSR had become the largest industrialized entity on the planet by 1941.
The Russian people of Stalingrad would have been more stoic in their approach to war, instead of crying over every last little thing.e) Overpropagandic against communism at the end.f) German-Russian shoe shine boy exchange program never existed!g) Too many unexplained conflicts and friendships.h) Movies about snipers should contain more sniping, and less kissy- kissy time..
The mouse is a young Russian named Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law), who arrives on the shores of the Volga River to defend Stalingrad, an important city in which the German's are attempting to capture.
While we are never really concerned about the outcome of the actual war, nor do we entirely care about several aspects of the main characters, there are many good scenes of suspense, and the overall mood of the movie is effective.
Only about 10,000 survived to return to German after the war.Germany never recovered from this loss and it marked to start of their defeat.Please read the book Enemy at the Gates and forget this terrible film.
Scenes were completely drawn out, particularly a sex scene that had my friends and I looking at each other thinking "when is this going to end."  The whole love story slowed the movie down and took a lot out of it.
This film can be served as the appetizer to the main course coming out soon, "Pearl Harbor."Jude Law, Joseph Feinnes, Rachel Weisz, Ed Harris and Bob Hoskins come together to re-visit the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942.
Fiennes, Weisz and Hoskins were the icing to a cake that was delicious from the start.The highlights of "Enemy At The Gates" always came when Law and Harris were on screen because they played excellent psychological mind games with one another to win; furthermore, it was like watching master chess players playing for the grand prize.
This is incredible to me because the intensity shown on their faces speaks volumes about what the movie is really about.This may not be the best war film ever made but with two of the brightest young stars on the rise, an actress that is here to stay and a veteran that continues to turn in knock-out performances, "Enemy At The Gates" will be remembered for a long time..
A truly great book, "Enemy at the Gates, The Battle for Stalingrad" tells the full story of the German 6th army's successful invasion deep into Russia until they were stopped at Stalingrad.
If you do not know the full story of Stalingrad, you can watch this film and not have a clue how the Russians end up winning this key battle (although you do learn which sniper wins the dual).
this don't deserve being mentioned.Summary: even although the movie was made by French team, it is as far from truth in showing the battle and characters of Zaitsev and Russian soldiers, as it was made by a Marsian team.Vote: 2/10 for great visual effects..
The Germans catch wind of his fame and dispatch an expert marksman of their own to bring Zaitsev down, and a duel of the Stalingrad snipers begins.First I'll point out what I liked about the movie.
First of all is Rachel Weisz who makes a very unconvincing Soviet heroine with a very distracting upper class English accent , I guess this is to make the film more marketable to a potential female audience along with the inclusion of a love triangle which is slightly unnecessary and underdeveloped ( Witness the scene where it looks like Danilov is going to have the hero arrested as an enemy of the state and this is never followed up ?
At the end of every scene that went wrong somewhere (cliché/not compelling/bad acting/shallowness/ combination), I couldn't stop thinking that this could and should have been a great movie, as both its basic story, theme and setting offer vast possibilities for this.
After having to endure a harangue the whole way to the screen about how we would be seeing the real battle that won the war, not that inconsequential D-Day that "Saving Private Ryan" made such a big deal about as the U.S. didn't come in until the Russians already had turned the tide, I asked could he please be quiet during the movie and refrain from commenting on inaccuracies, etc.
only one scene has a "big attack" by the russians where it only seems to be one block long where the rubble conveniently has made a 3 foot wall for the germans and they focus only on the main character in the movie and not what he sees when doing so (unlike saving private ryan) and the carnage?
All future war films that I watch will be forced through the sieve of Enemy at the Gates and I will be surprised if anything from America will even remotely touch the power of this film.I freely admit that I know nothing about the production except that it could not possibly have been made with American money-too many foreigners acting, too few swipes at the Russians and far too many positive comments about the hated Soviets.The opening war shots of the barges across the river ferrying fresh troops to the besieged Stalingrad was as harrowing as any war sequence that I've ever seen and to think that the reality of the Stalingrad meat grinder was vastly worse gives you chills-the landing on the shore with its inevitable battles shows reasons for the revolvers that officers carry.The second, but major section of the script, with the development of the mini-war between the German sent to Stallingrad to kill the now famous young Russian sniper provides as good a background for the remainder of the film as is possible to see in a cinema.
From my own limited reading about the German attempt to subdue Russia and the pivotal, drawn out battle for Stalingrad I can see why many of the comments from Russian viewers are so scathing and why they are so angry at the contemptuous way the film makers have ignored the tragic history in favour of a two dimensional war/love story.Read the comments with the filter set to "hated it" and you will see what a crime against history those involved in making this film have committed.
I may say, for those who just want to get entertainment and see a war movie, this will do fine, it is good enough for a nice evening.For those seeking the historical truth, this movie is an outrageous shame, constantly trying to divert the attentions to facts that really didn't matter at all, if we do a transparent analysis.The Director spent all his time worried about demonizing the Russians and Stalinism, rather than demonizing the true villains (germans) and emphasizing the glorious role of the red army at world war II.
And let's just not refer that 25 million Russians were killed, close to 80% of the total WWII casualties!But hell no Mr Director, it doesn't matter that the invaders were the Germans, it doesn't matter the brutal massacre of the Soviet people by the Nazis, it doesn't matter the heroic role at Stalingrad that probably saved the whole world.
The action scenes in the movie were great, some of the best I had ever seen, and the story about every 3rd Russian Soldier receiving a rifle WAS true.
I expected something full of pretension and long, slow pauses but instead it was am effective little thriller which was tight in the right places and only a little baggy and slow at times.The film manages to give a good impression of the war in Stalingrad and, while not totally up to `Private Ryan' shock power, the opening 15 minutes are very realistic and very powerful.
This effective movie has a great, epic background over which to play the story - the battle of Stalingrad in World War II, which left the city in smouldering ruins and hundreds of soldiers (on both sides) dead.
In particular, Jude Law gives a convincing portrayal of an innocent farmer boy, initially terrified out of his life when he is thrown headlong into battle, and gradually turning into a war hero through the propaganda of his friend Danilov (an understated and effective turn from Joseph Fiennes).The initial sequence in which Law proves his worth as a sniper is an excellently-shot piece of action.
However, most scenes are stolen by Ed Harris (looking very much like Anton Diffring) as Major Konig, a German war hero and top-notch sniper who engages in some tense and suspenseful cat-and-mouse games in the rubble of Stalingrad, sequences which are the best in the movie.
The story takes place during World War II and is based on real events: Germans and Russians are fighting over every block of Stalingrad and the city is in ruins.
This film reminds me of John Mackenzie's "The Fourth Protocol" where we have good English actors who are portraying Russian people, speaking with a British accent (In scenes that are allegedly taking place in Russia).Not that it matters that much, especially in this film: But I do think that an actor like Bob Hoskins would have been able to pull off a Nikita Krushev, especially after all of the characters he has made us believe in the last 25 years.I have the same problems with Ed Harris, not that he was not the perfect actor to portray the German Sniper: He is just so...
American.Nevertheless, if you ignore these little irritants, this is a great film, apparently a true story pulled out of a huge book about Russia in WW II: but expanded and dramatized.Jude Law looks as good as any other character part he has taken, whether it is Lemony Snicket, Sky Captain, Joe from AI, or, my favourite, Errol Flynn in The Aviator.
Though unoriginal, the gory realism of war is entertaining to watch for most violent mongering young men like me.But this movie quickly nosedives into several ludicrous sub-plots, and the battle for Stalingrad merely becomes the backdrop for two lame and hackneyed stories--a romance with two friends going after the girl, and a high-noon, Top Gun, who's the toughest guy on the block shoot-out.I came into the film expecting to be treated to lots of awesome, over-the-top battle scenes (eg Saving Private Ryan) and tense "nazis aren't a faceless enemy" (eg Thin Red Line w/Japanese soldiers) but instead get bored silly with annoying revenge cliches and cute kids.
I love hearing comments about things the average American knows next to nothing about.A) The movie was loosely based on a short segment of the novel "Enemy at the Gates" (which referred to the Wermacht approaching the city) by William Craig, in which the duel between Vaili Zaitsev and the German Uber sniper is played out in the course of a page and a half.B) The truly epic proportions and consequences of The Battle for Stalingrad are under-appreciated by most non-Europeans.
I think that the weakness in due to 2 things: -Annaud realised a film about the 2nd world war and he asks american and british actors to play in it -the music by Mr James Horner is horrible again(he is really not talented) so this is an interesting movie because the plot is good enough and the actors are great(except B.Hoskins), but you could have expected more than that.
Enemy at the Gates is a pretty good war movie though not the best in accuracy.
Easily one of the best war movies that I have seen, young Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law), sharpshooter from the Urals, finds himself the hero of the Battle of Stalingrad on account of his superlative sniper skills.
For me, I went into this movie with high expectations, but it even amazed me more then i could of thought.Actors Jude Law, Bob Hoskins, Joseph Fiennes, Ed Harris, and Rachel Weisz did outstanding jobs at their roles making you feel a bunch of emotions during this film.
Great movie about the Battle of Stalingrad 1942 World War II.
To keep the ladies immersed until the end of the 131-minute movie, it even has a little romantic sub-plot, which potentially turns out to be the bewitching undoing of the lead character.The battle takes place during World War II in Stalingrad, Russia, with sharpshooter Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law) almost single-handedly bagging the bodies as promptly as they arrive, though things start to look grim for the Russian troops when the Germans move inward, and Commander Danilov (Joseph Fiennes) devise a "brilliant" plan to boost the hope of the civilians with propaganda-laden newspapers.