Enemy at the Gates

Still another WWII film (with more to come). There's a lot of "Saving Private Ryan" in the beginning of this movie. Things open up with soldiers getting slaughtered, legs flying, similar to the beginning of Private Ryan. This is a rare WWII film that doesn't involve Americans. And that's about the best thing we can say about this movie. Although the Germans and Russians speak English (many with British accents-American Chauvinism knows no end. In their world everyone speaks English!)

This movie opens in September 1942. The Germans and Russians are engaged in a fierce battle for control of Stalingrad. Both sides acknowledge that the city of Stalingrad is key to whether the Soviet Union stands or falls. The battle of Stalingrad lasted five months and claimed more lives than any other single conflict of the Second World War. We also find out (though not in this movie) - that there was oil at stake for the Germans. Soviet oil was mainly in the Caucaus. If this region were crossed, it would have turned Germany's wheels and made it possible for her to withstand a prolonged war. Getting past Stalingrad meant getting to this oil.

The toll taken upon the German army at Stalingrad represented one of the turning points of WWII. This film takes this historic battle and narrows its focus to two men playing cat-and-mouse games in the ruins. Russian sniper Vassily Zaitsev (Jude Law) is a rural farm worker who becomes a soldier. He quickly becomes an excellent sharpshooter and through the propaganda efforts of local political officer, Danilov (Joseph Fiennes) becomes a legend. He is idealistic, a decent guy who suffers from each pull of the trigger. His counterpart, brought in by the Germany government is their own sharpshooter Major Koenig (Ed Harris). The German character is as cold and calculating as Nazis are always presented.

The whole point of this movie seemed revealed when towards the end of the film Joseph Fiennes character, who (along with other Russians) is presented as back-stabbing, jealous and petty makes a speech in which he says that there really is no New Man, we can never change, its human nature! So the Nazis are bad, the Russians are bad, communism is dead and forget anything higher than the dog eat dog society we live in - this is as good as it gets.