| Title: Enemy At the Gates Starring: Jude Law, Joseph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Ed Harris, and Gabriel Thomson Genre: Drama, War Rates: R for violence, drama, sexuality, and get this... Natzis. Rating: **** (out of ****) Ok... this was a very impressive movie. True, it was a longer movie and lots of people probably couldn't sit through it do to the fact it was... heaven forbid... cultured, but it did hold up well with the rest of the group. This was based off of a true historical event during the seige of Stalingrad. Very historically correct (except for the involvements of Sascha (Gabriel Thomson), Tanya (Rachel Weisz), and Danilov (Joseph Fiennes), more on that later). On September 20th, 1942 officer Vassily Zaitsev (Jude Law) entered the outskirts of the city of Stalingrad in Russia. In a valiant charge, Vassily's comrades were shot down by the Germans and suffered a horrid military loss. Afterwards, however, Vassily meets up with a politcal officer Danilov who observes Vassily snipe down five German officers on their way out of Stalingrad. Seeing the impressive valor of Vassily and the low moral of the Russian troops, Danilov suggests a new Russian newspaper to rally the army through Vassily's valor. Vassily then becomes a hero throughout Russia after sniping off several dozen officers a day... forty within his first five. The Germans, displeased with having their top officers being sniped off, bring in a big shot to take down Vassily... SS Colonel Heinz Thorwald (Ed Harris). Thorwald begins stalking Vassily's movements, ultimately trying to snipe down and kill the Russian officer to demoralize the Red Army. During this time, Vassily falls in love with a girl whom Danilov also loves, Tanya (made up character) and her Sascha brother becomes a spy working for Thorwald (also made up). In fact, Danilov was killed several days before Thorwald and a different officer, Zulikov, was "offered" to lure Thorwald into the open where he killed. Regardless of these minor historical inaccuracies (Hollywood dramatics), Enemy At the Gates was a marvelous film with many very accurate depictions of the war. For one fact, it clearly showed that Russia was indeed against Germany... unlike what mostly all uneducated people believe. It was annoying to listen to the Russian and German officers speak in English... but this is America and it's quite ignorant. The added love story was an interesting parable with some colorful twists... but it was just a cute side to the main course. Enemy At the Gates was a very impressive historical film that was captivating and informative. One movie that showed Russia wasn't completly evil... Enemy At the Gates easily wins a four out of four star rating and a place on Alaay's Classics. -Alaay- |