Enemy At The Gates
A Brief Review of Jean-Jacques Annuad's
by Ryan Schubert
29 Sept. 2001

Seen it: once
Where: Theatre only
Gave it: 5 out of 10 (Not without its entertaining moments)

Directed by Jean-Jacques Annuad
Starring: Jude Law and Ed Harris
Director of Photography: Robert Fraise
Original Score by James Horner
Screenplay: Jean-Jacques Annuad and Alain Godard
Runtime: 131 minutes
Released: 2001
Language: English

Ever since Steven Spielberg raised the bar for mainstream American war movies in 1998 with Saving Private Ryan, less serious attempts have been made by other filmmakers to delve into the historical war drama. Two attempts in the last year included the reprehensible summer-blockbustered trivialization of World War II, Pearl Harbor, and French filmmaker Jean Jacques Annuad's lower budget tale of Soviet snipers, Enemy at the Gates.

The parallels between these two movies, particularly the hopelessly melodramatic "love triangle" plot lines, are a testament to how difficult it must be for less talented filmmakers to seriously deal with the topic of war, for a two hour (or more, in the case of Pearl Harbor) period of time without, feeling like they need to discuss another topic. That is, if they were ever trying to explore a serious topic in the first place.

Perhaps, in the hopes of creating a picture marketable to the lowest common denominator of viewer intelligence, the filmmakers felt that the audience needed to be able to put the absolute horror of war into a more tangible perspective by its juxtaposition to this contrivance. But the absolute horror of war was not well depicted in either piece, resulting in yet further contrivance. Go figure, right?

For Enemy at the Gates, where does that leave us?

For starters you've got Jude Law as Vasilli. A farmer's son from some rural part of the Soviet Union that has been rounded up with a lot of other young men and forced into battle at the front lines, pretty much against his will. His skills as a hunter come in handy in an early combat situation, and he is promoted to sniper. Jude Law is a great actor, I can't say that he's great in this but he makes the picture more bearable than it would have been in his absence. He seems to work with what he has to work with, though there is never really any meaningful introspection on the part of this character who is based on the most proficient Soviet sniper in World War II, of the same name, but perhaps that's not important.

Ed Harris plays Vasilli's arch nemesis, Major Konig, also a historical figure. Konig was the Third Reich's most proficient sniper, called in to murder Vasilli, whose endeavors had shortened the supply of Nazi Commanders operating on the front lines in the Soviet Union. Harris is stiff in this role and barely registers on the personality scale. It seems as if both of these great actors barely made an effort in this film.

The supporting cast is almost entirely forgettable (veteran Bob Hoskins among them), except for the always charming and amusing giant, Ron Perlman. He plays another soviet sniper that works with Vasilli. The film's act II comic relief.

In all fairness some of the film's battle sequences were well put together. The opening sequence, in which the unfortunate round-ups are paired together and given one rifle and two clips of ammunition between them to fight at the front lines, is appropriately effective. A few of the suspenseful sniper sequences were also entertaining. Though, as I have argued, dealt with in a some-what inappropriate manor.

On the film making end there is little that I can remember. The over-use of what must have been a either a back lot set piece or the only location that they could secure for shooting, is irritating at times. You don't get the sense of the size of the city that they operate them when you continue to see the same scenery. Perhaps the filmmakers could have learned from Stanley Kubrick's set re-usages in Eyes Wide Shut and Full Metal Jacket, which were much more subtle. On the upside, there is at least one OUTSTANDING use of sharp color contrast in Enemy at the Gates that would be almost impossible for anybody to miss.

This film was weak, but entertaining at times. Some may get more out of it than I did. In comparison to the more serious war movies that I have called to mention in this article, I can say for certain that Enemy at the Gates is not too emotionally heavy, in either of its plot lines, for a casual viewing experience and may be worth popping in the old VCR if all of the copies of Memento or Hannibal are checked out on Friday night.