My Movie Collection

Tagline: "Some Men Are Born To Be Heroes."

Early on in Enemy at the Gates, we're shown a map of Europe with Germany colored brown overprinted with a large black swastika and the Soviet Union colored red overprinted with a large white hammer and sickle. Then the brown starts to spread over most of the map as a voice intones, "Autumn, 1942. Europe lies crushed beneath the Nazi jackboot. The German Third Reich is at the height of its power. Hitler's armies are charging through the heart of the Soviet Union towards the oil fields of Asia. One last obstacle remains: the city on the Volga where the fate of the world is being decided -- Stalingrad." From this point on, we're in for an old-fashioned World War II story with exciting action sequences, a heavy-handed musical score, and a legendary hero.

We're soon shown a harrowing combat sequence where the desperate Soviets throw everything they have into the defense of Stalingrad. But the Soviets don't even have enough rifles to issue one to each soldier, so they issue as many as they can and send all the soldiers into combat with the instructions: "The one with the rifle shoots. The one without, follows him. When the one with the rifle gets killed, the one who is following picks up the rifle and shoots." The Soviet troops are slaughtered when they charge the Germans, but when some of them try to retreat, they're shot by their own officers.

In the chaos of battle, two Soviet soldiers wind up in a large, ornate fountain in the city center. One of these is Sergeant Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law), a former shepherd who is extraordinarily proficient with a rifle since he grew up in the Urals shooting wolves. The other is an idealistic political officer named Danilov (Joseph Fiennes), a gifted public relations man whose combat skills are minimal. Danilov watches as Vassili kills five Germans, and the two Russians are able to get back to the Soviet lines safely.

Meanwhile, ruthless Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin is determined to hold Stalingrad at all costs, partly because of its strategic importance, but also for psychological reasons: The city has been named after him. Stalin's envoy Nikita Khrushchev (Bob Hoskins) comes to Stalingrad and warns a group of Soviet political officers, "If the Germans capture this city, the entire country will collapse." Khrushchev demands suggestions as to how to motivate Soviet troops to stand up to the Germans, and Danilov proposes, "What we need are heroes." "Do you know any heroes around here?" asks Khrushchev, to which Danilov replies, "Yes, Comrade, I know one."

One day Vassili and Danilov meet the attractive Sergeant Tania Chernova (Rachel Weisz), and we eventually learn that women served in combat positions in the Red Army during World War II. Both Vassili and Danilov fall in love with Tania, but Tania loves only Vassili. Later in the film there's a tender scene where Tania and Vassili lie in a room filled with Soviet soldiers sleeping fitfully because they all know that most of them will be killed the next day. Tania removes her glove and pushes her bare hand down inside the front of Vassili's trousers, and moments later they make love with the lower parts of their bodies covered by a blanket.

Meanwhile, the German high command has become painfully aware of Vassili and sends their top sharpshooter, Major Konig (Ed Harris), to kill him. Konig is an aristocratic Bavarian whose son died at the hands of the Russians at Stalingrad. When Konig arrives to carry out his mission, German General Paulus asks him, "How are you going to go about finding this young Russian?" "I'll fix it," answers Konig, "so that he is the one who finds me." This sets up the most involving part of the film as Vassili and Konig enter into a deadly cat-and-mouse game in bombed-out stores and factories.

Through Tania, Vassili befriends her neighbor, a young boy named Sacha (Gabriel Marshall-Thomson). Sacha quickly comes to idolize Vassili. But Sacha also works as a shoeshine boy, and one day he shines the boots of Major Konig. Thus, Sacha becomes the only direct link between Vassili and Konig, and Konig plies the boy with chocolate in the hope of getting information about his adversary. One day Konig asks Sacha about Vassili, "Is there a girl he loves in his village?" "Not in his village," answers Sacha. "Here!" "Does she love him?" Konig asks, and Sacha responds, "Yes, because he's handsome! Because he's brave! And she's very beautiful. I know her well. She's from my neighborhood... Later, the two of them will get married." But Sacha has put himself in grave danger because Konig now realizes that the boy's admiration for Vassili is so great that he won't betray him.

Enemy at the Gates is a heavy-handed movie, and anyone expecting subtlety will be disappointed. But I see this film as spectacle, and viewed that way, it works well. The huge battle scenes are absolutely terrific, and the sniper scenes in a department store and a chemical factory are gripping. Also, when larger-than-life characters get to make speeches -- like when Bob Hoskins as Nikita Khrushchev says, "Vodka is a luxury we have. Caviar is a luxury we have. Time is not." -- it's great stuff.

It's too bad, though, that Enemy at the Gates isn't really successful at balancing its grandiose scenes with intimate moments when we get to know two or three of the individual characters better. It seems to me that all the raw materials were present in this movie for me to be exhilarated at some moments and deeply saddened at others, but this didn't happen because the human dimension to the story is largely missing. In particular, even though Jude Law is a good actor, his character Vassili Zaitsev is written in such a way that he doesn't evoke much of an emotional response. I can't help comparing Law's Vassili with Gary Cooper's portrayal of the title character in Sergeant York, and it seems to me that Cooper's York comes off as the more heroic figure by far.

It may be a little impolite of me, but perhaps I should say something about the language conventions used in Enemy at the Gates. Since the film is aimed at English-speaking audiences, it's not surprising that all the Russians always speak in English. However, the Russians print and write in Russian, so if it's important for English-speakers to know what's printed or written, English subtitles are used. This treatment of the Russian characters isn't too strange, but it seems very peculiar to me that the Germans speak in German, unless it's important for English-speakers to know what they're saying, in which case they speak in English! It's possible that the conventions chosen were the best way of dealing with the language problems posed by this movie, but I sometimes found this a little jarring.

I would say that Enemy at the Gates is a good, but not a great, movie. During the film's combat scenes and the duel between Vassili and Konig, it's very good indeed. But when it tries to show the conflicted friendship between Vassili and Danilov or the romantic relationship between Vassily and Tania, the movie falters. Still, I recommend Enemy at the Gates as a good chance to learn a little about history and be entertained at the same time.