The Herald Sun
26 July 2001
By Leigh Paastch

Rating: **
Ready. Aim. Dire! Here's a strange one - a very worthy war film in such a state of denial that it tries to pass itself off as highbrow arthouse drama. Just why the makers of Enemy at the Gates are so embarrassed about their movie's ripping military combat scenes is difficult to pinpoint.

Set amid the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, the movie's finest moments centre on a duel to the death between the best Russian and German snipers of World War II. As an added rarity, there's not a single American soldier involved. Yet, time and again, Enemy at the Gates squanders its pulse-pounding momentum on long, high-falutin' stretches of pointy-headed pretentiousness that get in the road of the good stuff.

Which, for the record, is Soviet master marksman Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law) and his German equivalent Erwin Konig (Ed Harris) pinging bullets past each other's ears in an elaborate game of cat and mouse. Away from the arresting action sequences - made all the more intriguing by the fact neither Zaitsev nor Konig can get a clear shot on each other for virtually the entire film - Enemy at the Gates is notable only for some amusingly fruity casting choices.

Only the ever-reliable Ed Harris makes a perfect fit with his role (despite delivering his lines as a German brought up in the suburbs of New York).

The fine features of Jude Law are framed so prettily at all times, he looks as if he would readily swap his gun for a blow-dryer without a second thought.

Shakespeare in Love's Joseph Fiennes suffers badly playing one of those parts where an actor is reduced to wearing spectacles to suggest his character has a high IQ.

The Mummy's Rachel Weisz lingers in the background for an ill-fitting love story, included only to placate any female viewers who may accidentally attend against their better judgment.

As for Bob Hoskins' bizarre depiction of real-life Russian strongman Nikita Khrushchev - jabbering away all the while like a London cab driver - you can only wonder who the producers would have chosen to play Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, had they included him in the storyline. Maybe Merv Hughes. He has the same kind of moustache, at least.

In summing up, whenever the guns are on the run, Enemy at the Gates scores a direct hit every time. But when the stalking stops and the talking begins, it misses by a country mile. Best enjoyed by war buffs who know how to take a selective aim.