Total Film
"...Excellent central performances. Law proves a first-rank leading man, radiating intelligence, nobility and sex appeal..." -- 4 out of 5 stars 04/01/2001 p.82-3Entertainment Weekly
"...Panoramic, meticulously plotted combat scenes..." 03/23/2001 p.73-4 Sight and Sound
"...[Harris performance has a] chilling dignity and authority..." 04/01/2001 p.45 Rolling Stone
"...Annaud's film boasts harrowing battle scenes....The film brings history to vital life..." 04/12/2001 p.145-6 Chicago Sun-Times
"...It's remarkable, a war story told as a chess game..." 03/16/2001 p.29 Premiere
"[Law] displays a facility for projecting internal activity, a trait he shares with Ed Harris..." 11/01/2004 p.106 ReelViews 7 of 10
Stalingrad, 1942-43. It was the bloodiest single battle in the known history of war, with more than one million perishing of wounds, disease, and the bitter cold of winter. Like Napoleon a century earlier, Hitler came to Stalingrad with the aim of breaking the spirit of Russia, and, also like the French little general, he was faced with catastrophic losses...Like Joseph Vilsmaier's powerful 1993 feature, Stalingrad, Enemy at the Gates elects to view this conflict from the point-of-view of a limited group of characters, rather than attempting to tackle the battle in an epic format. The film takes actual historical figures and imbues them with traits that allow their private struggle to mirror the overall conflict. However, as interesting as some of the ideas underlying the film are, and as technically adept as the production is, I had a hard time liking Enemy at the Gates. There's an emotional coolness to the picture and the characters are kept at a distance. There's also a lack of dramatic tension. The movie always moves in the direction of an inevitable conclusion, with minimal suspense along the way. As fascinated as I was by the historical backdrop against which the struggle occurs, I found it difficult to care one way or another about which characters lived or died...Director Jean-Jacques Annaud is not known for developing emotionally rich cinematic tapestries. His films often come across as visually stimulating but aloof (his previous outing, Seven Years in Tibet, is a perfect example). Enemy at the Gates falls prey to those characteristics. The movie squanders too many opportunities. For those who appreciate history and want to understand a little more about what went on during the battle of Stalingrad, I recommend Vilsmaier's movie. Enemy at the Gates hints at, but never achieves, greatness. Instead, for all of its impressive technical qualities, it ends up as a mediocre and mostly forgettable war film. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
"Enemy at the Gates" opens with a battle sequence that deserves comparison with "Saving Private Ryan," and then narrows its focus until it is about two men playing a cat-and-mouse game in the ruins of Stalingrad. The Nazi is sure he is the cat. The Russian fears he may be the mouse...The movie is inspired by true events, we're told, although I doubt real life involved a love triangle; the film might have been better and leaner if it had told the story of the two soldiers and left out the soppy stuff...This is a rare World War II movie that does not involve Americans. It takes place in the autumn of 1942, in Stalingrad, during Hitler's insane attack on the Soviet Union. At first it appeared the Germans would roll over the ragged Russian resistance, but eventually the stubbornness of the Soviets combined with the brutal weather and problems with supply lines to deliver Hitler a crushing defeat and, many believe, turn the tide of the war...Annaud ("Quest for Fire," "In the Name of the Rose," "Seven Years in Tibet") makes big-scale films where men test themselves against their ideas. Here he shows the Nazi sniper as a cool professional, almost without emotion, taking a cerebral approach to the challenge. The Russian is quite different; his confidence falters when he learns who he's up against, and he says, simply, "He's better than me." The strategy of the final confrontation between the two men has a kind of poetry to it, and I like the physical choices that Harris makes in the closing scene...Is the film also about a duel between two opposing ideologies, Marxism and Nazism? Danilov, the propagandist, paints it that way, but actually it is about two men placed in a situation where they have to try to use their intelligence and skills to kill each other. When Annaud focuses on that, the movie works with rare concentration. The additional plot stuff and the romance are kind of a shame. - Roger Ebert
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