![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Movie review.
May. 10th, 2003 11:06 amOK, watching Enemy at the Gates last night. Being a history freak, I loved it; they did a nice job getting some details in. Yes, Soviet troops coming into the battle got one rifle for every two men, and were told to move in pairs so when the rifleman died, the unarmed man could keep fighting.
Even the love story didn't bother me much. It felt a bit forced, but worked on a few levels. What bothered me was that Stalingrad felt empty. There were over 100,000 soldiers fighting in that city! Yet it felt like an empty set of buildings. Oh, well.
If you haven't seen it, the movie is the story of the greatest sniper duel of all time. Vassili Zaitsev, a shepherds' boy from the Urals becomes the terror of German officers and a hero to the Soviet people. In response, the Germans send Konig, the commander of the Wehrmacht sniper school to hunt him down. Much of the movie is taken up with their personal battle. The love triangle complicates things for Zaitsev.
From a professional point of view, the sniping was well handled. Konig and Zaitsev used cover and concealment, waited out their shots, and made good target selections. There were a fair share of impossible shots. (a Russian sniper hit while leaping between shattered portions of a building, and a German officer killed with only a tiny portion of his head visible) but these two guys were the best.. but..
( There was one thing at the end. Spoilers )
All in all a good move.
Even the love story didn't bother me much. It felt a bit forced, but worked on a few levels. What bothered me was that Stalingrad felt empty. There were over 100,000 soldiers fighting in that city! Yet it felt like an empty set of buildings. Oh, well.
If you haven't seen it, the movie is the story of the greatest sniper duel of all time. Vassili Zaitsev, a shepherds' boy from the Urals becomes the terror of German officers and a hero to the Soviet people. In response, the Germans send Konig, the commander of the Wehrmacht sniper school to hunt him down. Much of the movie is taken up with their personal battle. The love triangle complicates things for Zaitsev.
From a professional point of view, the sniping was well handled. Konig and Zaitsev used cover and concealment, waited out their shots, and made good target selections. There were a fair share of impossible shots. (a Russian sniper hit while leaping between shattered portions of a building, and a German officer killed with only a tiny portion of his head visible) but these two guys were the best.. but..
( There was one thing at the end. Spoilers )
All in all a good move.
