Solid World War II action thriller!

Over the years, movie studios have incessantly produced large scale World War II films that portray a certain part of the long-running war. Enemy of the Gates is one of the latest action thrillers to be produced during Hollywood's recent obsession with war films.

Essentially this film is another attempt at equalling the best war film of all time - Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. With this style of violence and epic battle sequences in mind, this film tackles the battle of Stalingrad and its aftermath.

The Germans are conquering virtually all of Europe and are close to crushing the Soviets. They only need to take control of Stalingrad to complete their plan. Based on an actual historical character, an accurate Russian rifleman named Vassili Zaitsev (Law) emerges as a prominent figure in the army after an act of heroism during the battle of Stalingrad of which he was one of the only Russians to survive. Vassili is an extraordinary marksman who gained quite a reputation during the war. His friend Commisar Danilov (Fiennes) endlessly prints stories about him; praising his skills and intelligence while in combat. The Germans are losing sleep over Vassili's extraordinary skill with a rifle. Because so many men have been lost thanks to a bullet from his rifle, the Germans send in a professional sniper (Harris) to match the skills of Vassili. Soon a sickeningly embarrassing love triangle emerges between Vassili, Danilov and a woman named Tania Chernova (Weisz).

Enemy at the Gates opens with a bang. Its retelling of the battle of Stalingrad is guaranteed to please history enthusiasts, former soldiers and the action junkies. Like the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan, this battle is shown with a high level of realism and gruesome violence. But after these solid opening 25 minutes the film then falls victim to the typical war film syndrome. The whole thing is a solid action thriller with a lot of intensity and breathtaking set design. It succeeds in delivering realism to its source material. It's an incredible shame that the screenwriter had to spoil the whole thing with such a ludicrous romance sub-plot. As soon as an attractive young woman appeared on screen, it was foreseeable that a host of characters would want to get involved with her.

Aside from this endless assortment of clichés and conventions, the film's dialogue isn't much better. I thought that the dialogue sounded unnatural and contrived. Not to mention the blatantly distracting and disconcerting fact that while the Russians write and type in their natural language, they put together a sentence and deliver announcements over radio...while fluent in English! The German soldiers can also speak perfect English. The irony is in the recruiting of translators to translate the German messages. If they keep speaking English, why would a translator be necessary?

The powerhouse performances are among one of the film's redeeming features. But yet again blatant factual errors hurt the film's entertainment value. None of the actors appear to make an effort to produce an accent while delivering dialogue. Jude Law is a great actor for sure. However it looks strange and stupid because he plays a Russian who speaks English in an English accent. At points in the film while no lines are being said and instead facial expressions tell the story...now that's when the performances are first-rate.

Enemy at the Gates also contains some superb production values. The expansive locations look authentic and true to life. As planes fly over we can feel the impact and the palpable fear that the protagonists are exhibiting. The film cleverly tells a nail biting game of cat-and-mouse between two snipers in the battlefield of Stalingrad.

Like all recent war movies the costumes look authentic, the make-up looks superb, cinematography is great, directing is strong and there's a triumphant score as the bow on top. Enemy at the Gates was made with the audience in mind that will enjoy mindless violence as opposed to intelligent dialogue.