150 Word Review: 'Enemy At The Gates' (2001)
Back in the U.S.S.R.
This is one of the best post-Saving Private Ryan World War II epics, a gritty, big-budget retelling of the gruesome battle of Stalingrad. Enemy At The Gates is also a genre rarity: a story about the Soviet Union’s greatest generation. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud opens with desperate Russian army officers throwing young recruits into German machine gun fire, and shooting those who retreat, on Stalin’s orders.
Jude Law is predictably dashing as a country boy who’s good with a rifle. Joseph Fiennes gives one of his best performances as an eager propagandist who transforms Jude Law’s grunt into an unlikely folk hero. Ed Harris is a Nazi with an American accent. He’s his typical steely self as a rival sharpshooter sent to take down Law’s character. Bob Hoskins is equal parts mob enforcer and corporate middle-manager as Nikita Kruschev, future Soviet dictator. Besieged Stanligrad is rendered with grim but human details.