Enemy at the Gates (2001) USA
Enemy at the Gates Image Cover
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Director:Jean-Jacques Annaud
Studio:Paramount
Producer:John D. Schofield, Jean-Jacques Annaud
Writer:Jean-Jacques Annaud, Alain Godard
Rating:3.5
Rated:R
Date Added:2006-06-21
ASIN:B00003CXRA
UPC:0097363386247
Price:$9.98
Awards:6 nominations
Genre:International
Release:2001-08-13
IMDb:0215750
Duration:131
Picture Format:Widescreen
Aspect Ratio:1.85:1
Sound:Dolby
Languages:English, Dolby Digital 5.1, French, Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles:English
Features:Subtitled
Jean-Jacques Annaud  ...  (Director)
Jean-Jacques Annaud, Alain Godard  ...  (Writer)
 
Jude Law  ...  Vassili Zaitsev
Ed Harris  ...  Major König
Rachel Weisz  ...  Tania Chernova
Joseph Fiennes  ...  Commisar Danilov
Bob Hoskins  ...  Nikita Khrushchev
Ron Perlman  ...  Koulikov
Eva Mattes  ...  Mother Filipov
Gabriel Thomson  ...  Sacha Filipov (as Gabriel Marshall-Thomson)
Matthias Habich  ...  General Paulus
Sophie Rois  ...  Ludmilla
Ivan Shvedoff  ...  Volodya
Mario Bandi  ...  Anton
Hans Martin Stier  ...  Red Army General
Clemens Schick  ...  German NCO (as Clemans Schick)
Mikhail Matveyev  ...  Grandfather (as Mikhail Matveev)
Mikhail N. Matveev  ...  Grandfather (as Mikhail Matveev)
Jospeh Fiennes  ...  
Mikhail Matveev  ...  Grandfather
Comments: Some Men Are Born To Be Heroes.

Summary: Like Saving Private Ryan, Enemy at the Gates opens with a pivotal event of World War II--the German invasion of Stalingrad--re-created in epic scale, as ill-trained Russian soldiers face German attack or punitive execution if they flee from the enemy's advance. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud captures this madness with urgent authenticity, creating a massive context for a more intimate battle waged amid the city's ruins. Embellished from its basis in fact, the story shifts to an intense cat-and-mouse game between a Russian shepherd raised to iconic fame and a German marksman whose skill is unmatched in its lethal precision. Vassily Zaitzev (Jude Law) has been sniping Nazis one bullet at a time, while the German Major Konig (Ed Harris) has been assigned to kill Vassily and spare Hitler from further embarrassment.
There's love in war as Vassily connects with a woman soldier (Rachel Weisz), but she is also loved by Danilov (Joseph Fiennes), the Soviet officer who promotes his friend Vassily as Russia's much-needed hero. This romantic rivalry lends marginal interest to the central plot, but it's not enough to make this a classic war film. Instead it's a taut, well-made suspense thriller isolated within an epic battle, and although Annaud and cowriter Alain Godard (drawing from William Craig's book and David L. Robbins's novel The War of the Rats) fail to connect the parallel plots with any lasting impact, the production is never less than impressive. Highly conventional but handled with intelligence and superior craftsmanship, this is warfare as strategic entertainment, without compromising warfare as a manmade hell on Earth. --Jeff Shannon