Jude Law, Joseph Fiennes, Ed Harris, Rachel Weisz, Bob Hoskins.

The press release proudly claims that Enemy At The Gates is Europe’s most expensive movie ever ever made and it’s easy to see why. There has been no expense spared in ORDER to provide a realistic atmosphere reminiscent of how war torn countries are supposed to look. It is a nice change to see a big budget war movie that doesn’t involve America and therefore doesn’t have the over zealous patriotism that inevitiably accompanies their movies. Look at anything produced by Jerry Bruckheimer as an example!!

EATG is set in the Russia during the turbulent 2nd World War, Vassili Zaitsev (Law) is a masterful sniper working in the Soviet Union army and recruited to protect the city of Stalingrad, along with thousands of his commarades including the head of the communist propoganda Danilov (Fiennes). To instill faith and courage into the army Danilov creates a national hero out of Vassili through constant promotion.

Whilst slowly killing off Germany’s top military people, Vassili’s heroism grows and slowly people are taught to fight like him to win the war against the Nazi’s and win their mother land back. Hiding out in their ruined city Vassili meets and falls in love with Tania (Weisz) an educated intelligence officer who learns the ways of the war to fight by Vassili’s side.

When Germany learns of Vassili’s abilities, they send their top sniper Major Konig (Harris) to fix the problem. Vassili and Konig must face each other, in a game of cat and mouse and make sacrifices they thought they never would for the glory of their beloved countries.

This movie is compelling and shocking which is obviously to create a more realistic feel. Jude Law is magnificent, he has a very debonair quality which is excellent for the role of Vassili. There are very graphic scenes of murder and war, not quite as graphic as the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, but is disturbing nonetheless.

It is a wonderful premise and was presented beautifully. The cold feel of the Soviet and damaged scenery looks quite interesting and the look of destroyed buildings look almost metallic. The only complaint that I have is that all of the main characters to are supposed to be German or Russian virtually all have either British or American accents but that is only a minor complaint.

THE EXTRAS

* Behind the Scenes Featurette: Inside Enemy At the Gates is a 15 minute look at how the film was made and features interviews with cast and crew.

* Through the Crosshairs: Is an SHO Extras program (similar to HBO first look), running approximately 20 minutes. Again this is a made for TV featurette about the movie featuring cast and crew interviews and footage from the film, but thankfully is different from the one above.

* Additional Scenes: 9 Scenes in total, running 11 minutes, that do not add anything to the film and were wisely omitted from the final cut.

* Theatrical Trailer

* Cast & Crew Biographies

CONCLUSION

A Grand epic drama, if you liked Saving Private Ryan this may strike a cord with you….