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Enemy at the Gates

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Jude Law

Joseph Fiennes

Rachel Weisz

Ed Harris

Bob Hoskins

Ron Perlman

Eva Mattes

Gabriel Thomson

Matthias Habich

Alexander Schwan

Lenn Kudrjawizki

Gennadi Vengerov

Dan van Husen

Ivan Shvedoff

Sophie Rois

Mario Bandi

Hans Martin Stier

Clemens Schick

Hendrik Arnst

Claudius Freyer

Dietmar Nieder

Bernd Lambrecht

Jim Dowdall

Maxim Kovalevski

Peter Silbereisen

Markus Majowski

Robert Stadlober

Gotthard Lange

Anna Böttcher

Holger Handtke

Marc Bischoff

Mark Zak

Thomas Petruo

Dmitri Alexandrov

David Pagel

Galina Dobberstein

Igor Rozinsky

Sergei Tokarev

Tom Wlaschiha

Marischka Schubarth

Natalya Bondar

Dana Cebulla

Piotr Papierz

Jarek Wozniak

Genia Makarov

Werner Daehn

Birol Ünel

Grigori Kofmann

Aleksei Nesterov

Vladimir Vilanov

Aleksei Volodin

Gennadi Tselbyansky

André Emanuel Kaminski

Michael Schenk

Jury Cooper

Manfred Witt

Arslan Kodirov

Axel Neumann

Morin Smole

Inna Samain

Keta Burowa

Toby Cockerell

Jürgen G.H. Hoppmann

Kay Hunsicker

Eddy Joseph

Martin Glyn Murray

Valentin Plătăreanu

Thomas Rösicke

Mikhail Matveev

Jean-Jacques Annaud

Gudrun Leyendecker

Simon Wakefield

Alain Godard

James Horner

Roland Pellegrino

Janty Yates

Noëlle Boisson

John Hubbard

Jörg Reichl

Humphrey Dixon

Andreas Biegler

Ros Hubbard

Robert Fraisse

Wolf Kroeger

John D. Schofield

Alisa Tager

Steven Lawrence

Marco Bittner Rosser

Rick Kline

Martin Cantwell

James Wright

Neil Lamont

Linda DeVetta

Valeska Schitthelm

Roxy Konrad

Chris Carpenter

Peter Francis

Dominic Masters

John Paterson

Jon Billington

Albert Von De Thuman

Steven Sallybanks

Maher Maleh

Fredrik Sundqvist

Joe E. Rand

Geoff Boyle

Frank Wegerhoff

Annette Borgmann

Klemens Becker

David Crossman

Natascha Pfeiffer

Matthew Plummer

Sheila Dunn

Peter Chiang

Sebastian Meuschel

Phillip Grannuci

Alex Bailey

Paul J. Franklin

Ronald Schwarz

Mary Elizabeth Still

Sönke Hansen

Antony Bluff

Matthew Holben

Drew Jones

Sean Schur

Dietmar Haupt

Alex Hope

Brigitte Friedländer-Rodriguez

Sabine Groh

Carola Raum

Christian Almesberger

Klaus Große Darrelmann

Patric Scott

Markus Bensch

Sabine Schulmeyer

Hasso von Hugo

Marcus Loges

Alexander Liebenthron

Anja Müller

Daniel Pruß

Dominic Sidoli

Phil Adams

Andreas Augsburg

Chantal Feghali

Wolfgang Wrede

Christian Wegner

Gerd Breiter

Alexander Nowotny

Michael White

David Hörnle

Jens Gaube

Peter Holt

Sandro Eichler

Steven Rosenblum

Dina Eaton

Joey Weber

Tabitha Dean

Gérard Estival

Richard Bain

Yvonne Yaconelli

Thomas Hezel

Heinz Werner Schneider

***War of the rats in crumbling Stalingrad during WWII***

RELEASED IN 2001 and directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, "Enemy at the Gates" takes place in the last four months of 1942 during the pivotal Battle of Stalingrad. Russian troops are carted in by the literal trainloads as the Germans attack/bomb the city. Once the dust clears the situation settles into a more personal battle of sharpshooting wills. A lowly young Russian soldier named Vassili (Jude Law) distinguishes himself for his shooting skills and is promoted as a national hero to motivate the Russian cause. After numerous German officers are assassinated, Major König (Ed Harris), the top German sniper, is assigned to seek out and eliminate Vassili.

Most WWII films take place on the Western Front whereas "Enemy" is one of only two mainline films I can think of that address the Eastern front, the other being Sam Peckinpah's underrated "Cross of Iron" (1977).

Three things stuck in my mind after seeing “Enemy at the Gates” years ago: (1.) The opening sequence where the Russian troops are boated across the Volga to join the fight is extremely harrowing, not far removed from the opening D-Day invasion in “Saving Private Ryan” (1998), but different. “Enemy” is worth viewing for this sequence alone. (2.) The city-in-rubble sets with bodies strewn everywhere had a lasting impression on me as did the scurrying-like-rats-through-the-rubble warfare. (3.) Some may find this weird, but I always remembered the discreet lovemaking scene while the soldiers lain in the rubble trying to sleep. I'm not sure why this left an impression, maybe because it struck me as so real: Men & women would be drawn to one another and mate even in the worst possible scenarios.

The film was based on the book "War of the Rats" by David L. Robbins and thus intentionally provokes the imagery of human rats scurrying through the debris. The cast also includes Joseph Fiennes as the political officer who elevates Vassili to hero status via his pamphlets and articles, while Rachel Weisz plays the romantic interest between the two. Ron Perlman is also on hand in a limited role as Vassili's sharpshooting comrade.

As with any film based on historical events there are facts-obsessed critics who decry the lack of authenticity in this or that detail (e.g. "The zippers on the trousers aren't right, blasphemy!!"), but "Enemy" gets the gist correct and, besides, it motivates the viewer to research the actual Battle of Stalingrad. What more can you ask for? 

The fact is Vassili had 260 verified Nazi kills and played a key role in motivating the Russians to victory in the Battle of Stalingrad, the largest and bloodiest battle in the history of warfare (with roughly 2 million killed, wounded or captured). The movie effectively shows how the Russian combatants weren't necessarily professionally trained soldiers; many of them were peasants, workers, teachers, mailmen, farmers, etc. They knew they could die the next morning hence they celebrated (and made love) while they could. Stalingrad was one of the major turning points of World War II; from then on it was all downhill for Germany.

FINAL WORD: "Enemy at the Gates" details an oft-ignored important aspect of WWII, the Eastern front. It has several memorable scenes, especially the opening crossing of the Volga and also a clever sequence involving a large shard of reflective glass.

THE FILM RUNS 2 hours, 11 minutes and was shot entirely in Germany (Brandenburg and Bavaria).

GRADE: B+

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Enemy at the Gates

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Jude Law

Joseph Fiennes

Rachel Weisz

Ed Harris

Bob Hoskins

Ron Perlman

Eva Mattes

Gabriel Thomson

Matthias Habich

Alexander Schwan

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