The battle scenes in this movie are pretty good, its almost as gut wrenching as was Saving Private Ryan and in some cases even more horrific...the whole movie basically takes place diuring the siege of Stalingrad...with the opening scenes of reinforcements coming to Stalingrad facing off the Germans. Pretty grim stuff...especiallt when you see Stukas divebombing over hapless soldiers...

if you think about it the Russians probably facest the worst hardships during ww2...losing th e most soldiers and even facing extinction from there own government...but i shouldn't be so naive...i think there was a lot of suffering to go around ...anyway

if you like war movies see this movie it aint too bad...and in some cases if you like snipers then for sure see this movie.

etc

Point. Counter point.

Sorry kafka, but I cannot concur.

If you like war movies, or any kind of movies in general, avoid this movie at all costs. It is terrible. The cat and mouse stuff is pretty good, but everything else (translation: 3/4 of the movie) is a mess. The filmmakers just were not up to the task.

The title cards alone are enough to make me not recommend this film.

Amanpour

ok the romance was cheap (supposedly the director wanted to take it out), but the special effects were pretty good, and the war scenes in general were VERY good. I'm not saying this movie was oscar material...its worth the full admission imo.

btw, what do YOU think is a good war movie? also, to be honest i see no difference between this movie and Saving Private Ryan, in fact i find this movie more enjoyable. The big gripe i have against movies like Saving Private Ryan are the pretensions of being THE war movie of all war movies. still though if you think about it, everybody wants to see a movie just for the war scenes, we are all bloody by nature imo, just look at all the games we play!

anyway, "terrible" i think is too harsh a word for this movie, I've seen DnD last year...now THATS terrible!

oh well different strokes different folks n all

etc

I really, really like Enemy at the Gates (and I like war movies). The romance wasn't particularly well done (though Rachel Weisz is very easy on the eyes), but it was only a quarter of the movie. I thought each sniper set piece was incredible and Ed Harris was perfect. The depiction of war-torn Stalingrad was alone worth the price of admission IMO.

Saw it last night. Effective war scenes and very well made, but it had way too much of the love triangle and not enough of the sniper duel.

The political part of Enemy at the Gates, with the Soviets being thrown at the German guns, was fairly realistic from the early part of the siege (it went street-to-street by the time of the film, though). I liked the scenes with the bombers and fighters, they seemed to convey the terror of seeing this death-dealing monstrosity coming right at you. The one-on-one sniper duel, with the vaguely mystic overtones, was inappropriate. Germans killed Russians wholesale. They didn't play chess with them.

The political officer was well-done, though I doubt he really would have stuck his neck out suggesting a change like he did. The romance was...well. It was.

Overall, I liked it. But I'd call it more of an action or drama using war as a backdrop than a war movie, myself. Having said that, and not knowing one thing about movie reviewing, you may now feel free to tear this post to ribbons ;-)

I'll just toss in a tip here: if you enjoyed this movie, check out the book "War of the Rats" by David Robbins. It covers the exact same events (ie Zaitsev vs the SS in the siege of Stalingrad), but I don't believe that it is related to the movie. It predates the movie by about 2 years.

I believe both the book and the movie are based on the events as reported in the Soviet Red Star newspaper during WWII. Those accounts are public domain now, IIRC. Whether or not you consider this a seriously "true" story depends on how much credibility you want to give to Red Star newspaper. However, Zaitsev was a real person and was a noted Soviet sniper during WWII who did fight at Stalingrad.

In any case, the book is good. Robbins also did another good WWII book called "The End of War" which is set during the last weeks of the war. Very cool

Daniel Ban aka Sharpe

The bibliography in "War of the Rats" cites the book "Enemy at the Gates", published in 1973, among many sources. From what I've heard, though, the book covers the entire battle, not just the duel. Excellent book so far (approx 1/2 the way through)and its its clear that while the movie and Robbins draw from the same pool of events they have very different takes.

Those who've already seen the movie (a spoiler warning basically) might find interesting this page I found called Sniper Legends, which includes, basically, a Reader's Digest version of the real life duel:

http://home.swipnet.se/longrange/ZAITSEV.htm

I recently saw the movie, and having just now received the latest TNR, I'd have to agree with Stanley Kauffmann's review, which reads, in part:

"And to cap the oddity of the enterprise, the screenplay reduces this historic agony to a background for a love story and a cinematic shoot-out. Enemy at the Gates makes one hope fervently that there is no afterlife: the possibility that any victim of Stalingrad, either Russian or German, could see the film from above - or below - would be an added horror."

Cool, uh, he really liked it then? :) I hate when critics try so hard to be clever you can barely tell how they felt about the movie. Couldn't he just say, "I thought it sucked, save your money?" :)

I think the critic is saying the war scenes are belittled by a stupid romance... yeah he's saying it sucked and that it's condescending to the survivors...hell some survivors of the holocaust really didn't like Schindlers List...feeling it reduced the horror of the holocaust to an E.T. Spielberg moment.

Still a godd movie to watch the bit of ultra violence... ppl like to watch destruction, and if its done well, even better.

etc

"Still a godd movie to watch the bit of ultra violence... ppl like to watch destruction, and if its done well, even better."

I thought it sucked and save your money.

Amanpour

Thank you! How refreshing. ;-)