Enemy at the Gates **** (2001, Jude Law, Ed Harris, Joseph Fiennes, Bob Hoskins, Rachel Weisz) – Classic Film Review 841

Director Jean-Jacques Annaud’s compelling 2001 film tells the persistently small-scale, intimate wartime story of a Russian sniper Vassili (Jude Law) and a German marksman major Konig (Ed Harris) playing a lethal game of cat and mouse all the way to the death.

Set round the German siege of Stalingrad in 1942, this story just won’t go big and epic whatever director Annaud tries with his spectacular battle-action scenes and scenes of Stalingrad in ruins.

Law and Harris give killer performances and their prolonged battle is totally tense, thrilling stuff. Bob Hoskins is iffy as an apparently Cockney-raised Nikita Krushchev. Joseph Fiennes (as Danilov) is good but overshadowed by Law, and an unlucky Rachel Weisz is apparently just in it for the love interest as Tania.

It’s is apparently based on real characters and a true story, though, as told here, it has all the hallmarks of fiction.

There’s another version of the story in Stalingrad (2013).

Sadly on 8 August 2012, Hoskins announced his retirement from acting after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2011 and on 29 April 2014 he died from pneumonia, aged 71. He appeared in films such as The Long Good Friday (1980), Mona Lisa (1986), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Mermaids (1990) and Hook (1991).

(C) Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 841 derekwinnert.com

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more film reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/