Enemy at the Gates poster & wallpaper

Jude Law, Ed Harris, Joseph Fiennes

Two Russian and German snipers play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad.

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81% liked it

201,645 ratings

Critics

58% liked it

123 critics

R, 131 min.

Directed by: Jean-Jacques Annaud

Release Date: March 16, 2001

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DVD Release Date: August 14, 2001

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Flixster Reviews (7,368)

  • Gx7
    November 21, 2009
    Gx7

    Autumn, 1942. Europe lies crushed beneath the Nazi jackboot. The German Third Reich is at the height of its power. Hitler's Armies are charging through the heart of the Soviet Union towards the oil fields of Asia. One last obstacle remains, a city on the Volga, w

    ...( read more)here the fate of the world is being decided..

    This, is Stalingrad...
    Welcome to Hell.


    "I am a stone. I do not move. Very slowly, I put snow in my mouth, then he won't see my breath. I take my time. I let him come closer. I have only one bullet. I aim at his eye. Very gently, my finger presses on the trigger."
    -Vassili Zaitsev



    I havent been this ecstatic about a war movie for a long time. Sniper vs sniper action, tactical combat, wow.. and I mean "WOW!" 10 minutes from the start of the movie, my eyes were poppin out of its sockets (lol). The actors performances were stellar, but I thought the casting was a tad bit off. (Another American passing of as a German.. well he played the role well, I just couldnt see him as a German thats all.)

    All movies have its flaws, if you dwell on them too much you'll spoil the good in it. I liked this one a lot, end of.
    Recommendation: A worthy collectible.

    Genres: War History, Thriller, Drama
    Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud
  • organgrinder136
    August 15, 2009
    organgrinder136
    jude law, joseph fiennes and rachel weisz are not really actors i like. however this is a bloody good war film about two snipers, one russian and one german. it's set during the battle for stalingrad. the problem is it has a soppy and uninteresting love story sandwiched in there
  • AgentLexi2132
    January 20, 2009
    AgentLexi2132
    ''I've been such a fool, Vassili. Man will always be a man. There is no new man. We tried so hard to create a society that was equal, where there'd be nothing to envy your neighbour. But there's always something to envy. A smile, a friendship, something you don't have and want...( read more) to appropriate. In this world, even a Soviet one, there will always be rich and poor. Rich in gifts, poor in gifts. Rich in love, poor in love.''

    Two Russian and German snipers play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad.

    Jude Law: Vassili Zaitsev

    It begins like a Saving Private Ryan rendition of sorts, bludgeoning us with narration, story and images of war, depicting a grizzly reality of turmoil. Now I was impressed with the opening scenes of battle, the random fighting we essentially seem to be thrown into.
    As Enemy at the Gates continues, we get characters thrown together without any explanation or reason. It just happens repeatedly in an array of events, that seem to defy believability.
    This being a Russian story, a Soviet tale, it does succeed in being a strange re-telling of history. The Russian Communist soldiers are depicted as expendable morsels, whom strangely all speak English, in strange ways. They shoot soldiers who retreat but don't have enough guns for all their people. Does this make sense? Clearly not. If they spent all that energy actually fighting the enemy rather than attacking their own grunts then they would of actually speeded up defeating the enemy.

    Writer/Director Jean-Jacques Annaud, writer Alain Goddard, and cinematographer Robert Fraisse treat the subject matter with confusing strokes of bizarreness and splatterings of action and fighting. It's very tricky to capture certain aspects and some parts feel like they have mixed messages as to why they are taking place. Anyone who's read anything credible about the inhuman suffering the Russian soldiers endured during this battle will have no trouble filling in the gaps that the narrative leaves about their living conditions. The blood and gore shown during the battles is beneficial to the atmosphere. Rather than just expecting you to believe that a solider receives a bullet to the aforementioned head, they show you Nazi and Soviet heroes dealing out death and judgment, so we can relate to them.

    ''All these men here know they're going to die. So, each night when they make it back, it's a bonus. So, every cup of tea, every cigarette is like a little celebration. You just have to accept that.''

    After Enemy at the Gates introduces audiences to the horrific street-to-street, house-to-house, factory-to-factory warfare with the massed armies pitted against each other, and showing German victories, demonstrating the awesome road to victory ahead, faced by the Red army, a subplot of the Stalingrad fight, becomes the plot of this story, killing key Nazi officers with snipers, in a guerrilla tactic maneuver.
    The sniper confrontations revolve around the two principals, Vasilli (Jude Kaw) and German Major Konig (Ed Harris). Konig is brought on midstream to provide specialized help, after the sniper successes on the part of the Russians present, the Wehrmacht with problems, it is not trained to encounter. The psychological drama that develops, with no shortage of plausible acting, is among the most captivating and memorable aspects, in this field of film.

    ''Look at him with pride, because he's looking at you. The whole country is looking at you.''

    The Germans' performance in the two World Wars is actually quite watchable, even though they were the losing side, considering their questionable allies and the size and strength of their opponents, Allied Forces. Nevertheless, the analysis is that they plan out every detail with a super organized approach, but make big errors, major errors of judgment, very basic is evaluating their opponents and taking on more than they can deal with. It is unlikely (actually, more like impossible) the Germans would have won WWI even had they occupied Stalingrad (they blew it the year before, by invading Russia too late), although it would have created more difficulties for the Russians (and the U.S. and U.K., heavily supplying them, heavily bombing the Germans, and fighting the Germans in North Africa).

    But in any event, the character of Major Konig is not in the usual vein of the over organized, rigid-thinking German. He is steely, in the usual German way, but projects a quiet, more genuine confidence, and is trickier still than his enemies. No particular Nazi party man, he is a professional soldier, not a bad guy (in the evenhanded approach, demanded of modern War story telling, toward at least the common soldier) when he is obliged to kill a civilian, it climaxes a vendetta against him, without sadism or graphic display. He projects a feeling of command and invincibility so compelling that the viewer actually feels he will win, although knowing otherwise. This is no spoiler, of course, yet we are left with the aura that Konig was the better man. It would be a spoiler to say how it was done, and that is another positive for Director Jean-Jacques Annaud. Heroism reigns triumphant for both sides, which is another shining bonus for Enemy at the Gates.

    Overall, it's a war film, not to be enjoyed for it's historical accuracy but for it's entertainment value and bemusing performances. We see Rachel Weisz, Bob Hoskins, even Joseph Fiennes whom seems underused, speaking these wonderful English accents, but when we see them they don't really seem Russian. This a Hollywood-ised version of History, which comes off more Patriot than Saving Private Ryan. I'm not saying it's not possible to make a film with English, looks at Boy in the striped Pyjamas and Schindler's List, but Enemy at the Gates makes them look somewhat silly.
    Bonuses include battles, costumes, sniping, intellectual mind games and music that resembles Willow especially the German Snipers tune. Enemy at the Gates is a nice try at symbolizing and telling the story of Vassili Zaitsev, the struggle between two classes, socialism and capitalist fascism.

    ''He doesn't know you exist, but at that moment you're closer to him than anyone else on earth. You see his face through the sign. You see whether he shaved or not. You can see whether he's married if he's got a wedding ring. It's not like firing at a distant shape. It's not just a uniform. It's a man's face. Those faces don't go away. They come back and they get replaced by more faces.''
  • mrpopcorn
    July 18, 2008
    mrpopcorn
    I simply want to weigh in with a very positive response to Enemy at the Gates. Taken as a historical drama rather than an attempt to flawlessly depict a historical incident, this is topnotch entertainment. "Enemy" portrays the conflict between a young Russian sniper played by Law...( read more) and the German sniper (Harris) who is sent to kill him during the German attack on Stalingrad during WWII. Apart from a scene which awkwardly caricatures the Russian field commanders and the occasionally distracting accents, the film successfully immerses the viewer in this tense war drama. Appreciate it it for its tight focus, uncompromising realism, and fine characterizations by the main actors. Research the historical accuracy later, if you must, but don't let it spoil the film.

    4/5
  • TheMachinist
    June 10, 2008
    TheMachinist
    Russians who talk with a brit accent? Yes!
  • Order227
    November 21, 2009
    Order227
    An intense movie about Vasily Zaytsev, slightly fictionalized in this film, who succeeded in killing the expert Werhmacht sniper, Erwin König during the Battle for Stalingrad. This film does a better job of portraying the siege than the movie Stalingrad, which is also excellent.
  • anwar90scout
    November 18, 2009
    anwar90scout
    this movie is about a war that happen between soviet union(USSR) and germany...
  • Luciusthebigboss
    November 17, 2009
    Luciusthebigboss
    Danilov speech about the reason why a socialist society never would attend to humanity needs is pretty interesting. Nice movie at all!
  • redmoose1
    November 10, 2009
    redmoose1
    excellent film ,beautifully shot
  • adiliosantos
    November 6, 2009
    adiliosantos
    Very very very good, one of the rare movies that portraits the WW2 in the russian front, and excels at it.

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Critic Reviews

March 22, 2001
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Any flaws in execution pale against those moments when the film brings history to vital life. full review

March 16, 2001
David Edelstein, Slate

The film, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, doesn't stint on mud, corpses, or rubble, but the focus is all screwed-up. full review

March 16, 2001
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

After Enemy at the Gates teases us with the promise of something big, it's hard to be happy with a small-scale story. full review

March 16, 2001
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

It's remarkable. full review

March 15, 2001
A.O. Scott, The New York Times

Enemy at the Gates has its deficiencies, but the first-rate cast is not among them. full review

View more Enemy at the Gates reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments

  • mal2pool
    January 19, 2009
    mal2pool
    My favourite ever war movie. Love the sniper battle in the ruined city. Stunning beginning as the russian recruits are bundled into trains and boats and pushed and shoved into a battle they clearly don't fancy. Vastly outnumbered by the German army they rely on a lone sniper to sap the german spirit. Jude Law looks the part . Perfect saturday afternoon war movie. Can't understand why it didn't get good reviews.
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Enemy at the Gates Trivia

  • He acted alongside with Ed Harris and Joseph Fiennes in Enemy at the Gates and also acted in other movie with Nicole Kidman and Renée Zellweger in Cold Mountain? Who is he?  Answer »
  • In which movie do Jude Law and Rachel weisz play Russian snipers in world war 2?  Answer »
  • Jude Law DID NOT DIE at the end of this movie...  Answer »
  • What movie is this quote from? 'No one gives a shit about the telephone guys'  Answer »
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