The Sun-Herald, Australia
July 29, 2001
By Rob Lowing
The ambition to be all things to all adults sometimes trips up Enemy at the Gates. However, despite the woolly moments, this lavish new European war flick does deliver rousing, old-fashioned and steadily enjoyable entertainment.
The formula is simple: take a Russia-set romance (think Doktor Zhivago martyrdom) and cross it with Saving Private Ryan (lots of mud and war-is-hell action realism).
Romantically minded viewers might flinch at the harsher shadings, but the shrewd combination of emotion and war suspense should please adults of both sexes). Unlike the juvenile, teenage-targeted Pearl Harbour, Enemy at the Gates is a war movie for grown-ups.
It was directed by classy Jean-Jacques Annaud, who made the elegant The Name of the Rose and the potboiler-ish Seven Years in Tibet. Enemy has the best of the first and the worst of the second.
Luckily, Annaud has a flair of casting emerging male matinee idols. Here, he transforms British actor Jude Law from the efficient pretty boy of The Talented Mr Ripley into a riveting leading man whose caris-ma carries the whole show.
The story revolves around a reportedly true incident during the muddy guerilla warfare which dominated 1942's Battle of Stalingrad. The Nazis are overrunning Russia. Cities are falling, the home army is being decimated. The bomb-numbed population of Stalingrad, reduced from half a million to 1,000 people, is trap-ped and suffering. Stalin's envoy, Khrushchev (Bob Hoskins), will do anything to make sure that tottering Stalingrad, "the boss's city", does not fall. Zealous propaganda advisor Danilov (Joseph Fiennes) thinks Russia needs a hero. He is convinced he has found one in former Ural Mountains sheperd boy Vassili Zsaitsev (Law).
Vassili is Russia's best sniper, steadily picking off German soldiers as they try to infiltrate the unoccupied areas of the city. The Nazis sense that the Russians are rallying. So a high-ranking German officer (Ed Harris), the army's best sharpshooter, is sent in to flush out and kill Vassili. The ensuing lethal cat-and-mouse hunt is celebrated as fact in Russia. Enemy at the Gates's film-makers are sensibly more circumspect, noting the movie is "based on real events".
Yes, a Russian super-sniper by the name of Zsaitsev did exist and is said to have engaged in a shooting contest with his German equivalent, a Major Koenig. Beyond that, viewers should regard the story as credi-ble fiction.
Annaud doesn't sugar-coat the military details. Traditional big screen vistas of aerial attacks bookend what is a freezing brown hell of dead bodies and endless acres of mud. The hard-edged tone is set early when Vassili arrives in Stalingrad and watches panicked, baby-faced soldiers being shot as deserters. He then discovers that only every second soldier receives a rifle."When the first one dies", barks out a Russian of-ficer, "the second one takes the rifle".
Luckily, there's a truly lovely vein of warmth throughout the film. The film-makers have tried to grubby up Rachel Weisz, but they can't reduce the appealing prettiness of the talented British star from The Mum-my Returns. Thanks to Law and Weisz there are tender moments in this romance which rank among the best love story interludes.
Fiennes from Shakespeare in Love does solid work as the friend turned rival suitor while Harris is terrific in a role which plays more on close-ups than dialogue.
A final piece of advice: see this on the biggest screen you can find. Two viewings of Enemy, one on a smaller screen, revealed an astounding difference. On the bigger screen, the film's sometimes choppy jumps between romance and action are smoothed out. Watching on the big screen makes you really feel that you are seeing a war romance just like they used to make. Yes, there are some contrived moments. But it also means a beautifully cast, well-told story which delivered exactly what it promised.
