It’s been such a long time since there’s been a war movie that didn’t feature at least one member of the American army. The absence of American flag-waving in Enemy At the Gates comes as long overdue relief. There were, indeed, other countries fighting during the Second World War, and the battle between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in Stalingrad was an unquestionable turning point.
Enemy At the Gates focuses on the battle between Vassily Zaitsev (Jude Law) and Major Koenig (Ed Harris). Both are incredibly skilled snipers and are viewed as heroes in their respective countries. The Nazis sent Koenig to Stalingrad with the sole purpose of killing Zaitsev. Neither man has ever met the other, but director Jean-Jacques Annaud fills their encounters with incredible tension. Both soldiers crawl around train stations and chemical factories looking for that one spot that will give them a clean shot without making themselves a target. In many ways Enemy At the Gates can be compared to The Fugitive -- both characters are intelligent and challenge each other.
One of the first people to witness Zaitsev’s prowess with a rifle during the war was a political officer named Danilov, played here by Joseph Fiennes. It’s Danilov who turns Zaitsev into a much-needed national hero and becomes one of his closest friends. Their friendship becomes tested when both fall in love with Tania (Rachel Weisz), one of the many women soldiers fighting for the Soviet Union. For the most part this love triangle is handled well, although a lot of the scenes between Law and Weisz, which are complemented by a sweeping score from James Horner (Titanic), teeter on the brink of manipulation. The love story may not have been necessary, but as a B-plot it’s not bad either.
While Saving Private Ryan may have come first, Enemy At the Gates must be commended for its brutally explicit depiction of injury and death in battle. Annaud’s staging of the initial slaughter of the Soviets at Stalingrad is incredibly realistic and harrowing. When a Soviet commander shouts ’’The one with the rifle shoots! The one without the rifle follows! When the one with the rifle gets killed, the one without the rifle picks up the rifle and shoots!’’ you know it’s going to be a bloodbath, especially when the Germans are wheeling out tanks and machine guns. Annaud’s virtuoso epic is not for the squeamish.