Reel News

By Vasiliy Zaitsev

I was prepared to give "Enemy at the Gates" (R) five stars. I have always been a fan of the Zaitsev legend, which is evident from the nom de guerre I use for this column. Yet after seeing the movie, something bothered me about it, something I couldn't put my finger on until I read the Salon.com review last week. The Salon reviewer said "Enemy at the Gates" was "Stalingrad-land" and, y'know, that's exactly right -- it was a Disneyfication of the bloodiest battle in history. The important historical setting and superb, painstakingly crafted sets were reduced to window-dressing by a story line that lacked any serious character or plot development.

And somehow, that's just wrong to do to subject matter as heavy as Stalingrad.

Whereas Steven Spielberg, for my money, successfully depicted the horrors of the Normandy invasion in "Saving Private Ryan" and thus did justice to his subject matter, "Enemy at the Gates" director Jean-Jacques Annaud did not go far enough. A few blood-spattered gunshot special effects do not capture - and were even an insult to - the realty of Stalingrad, the creeping mass deterioration of sanity. Annaud missed the flavor of the event that author William Craig wrote of in the book of the same name (highly recommended) - the lice that swarmed wounds, the starving Germans eating horses and Doberman pinschers, the psychotic egos of Hitler and Stalin, and the political maneuverings of their lieutenants who sacrificed armies of men.

If Annaud wasn't prepared to present this to the audience, to rise above the usual lone hero-villian shtick, that's his choice. It's a free country. But then he should have chosen some other subject matter, something he could have remained faithful to.

Ed Harris, however, was excellent as German sniper Major Konings. He steals the show, and is the only actor worth mentioning (Jude Law might have been all right if he looked or even sounded anything remotely like the Ural Mountains peasant he was supposed to portray.) Harris salvaged what could have spun into a serious embarrassment of a movie. He breathes a masterful amount of complexity into the role - a father so distraught after the death of his son that he views the brutality of Stalingrad with a sportsman-like detachment.

Ratings: 3.5 out of 5 cross hairs (but only because of Ed Harris).