Enemy at the Gates Review

[BFCElvis]

Just returned from an afternoon viewing.

I liked the movie VERY much. Stalingrad had the look that had always been in my head. The love story didn't bother me or detract from the movie at all.

Sometimes when I leave a movie I'll think to myself..."well there's two hours of my life I can never get back"...Today I was saying "There's two hours well spent"

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"When they finally put you in the ground..I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down" Elvis Costello

[panzerpete]

the most significant thing I took away from watching this film is that Racheal Weisz (I think that is her name) is really, really hot -- even covered in mud and guts. I had major problems with the Hollywood-izing of this picture. It is just so sad that filmmakers beleive they have to spoon-feed history to movie-goers. Way too much emphasis on individuals when they should have spent more time with the battle itself, especially more from the german perspective. It ended up being just a typical good guy vs. bad guy type of movie when it could have been so much more. Saving Private Ryan is still far and away a better film in every respect. The most annoying part -- why use British actors?? Why didn't they get Russian actors that can speak English -- it would have been much more convincing.

[Grunt2001]

I just got back from seeing it also today, and it was excellent. I can see where all the people who've read "War of the Rats" or who are Stalingrad fanatics might nitpick, but as a whole it was really good. The love story wasn't overly schmaltzy, it fit well.

I did feel that Ralph Fines and Ed Harris were underused as actors, and the nitpickers can have a field day with some of the historical aspects, but I think the greatest thing to keep in mind that its just a war story, not a historical documentary. And I for one am very excited about the recent trend of WWII movies. How long did we suffer through a drought of really good war movies? I hope the WWII trend of films keeps going, with more and more on the way, I'm hoping.

Overall, its an excellent film if you don't go into it looking for a documentary. It is a good story. I just hope that its successful enought to convince Hollywood and other studios to make more.

[This message has been edited by Grunt2001 (edited 03-18-2001).]

[Guy w/gun]

Originally posted by panzerpete:

the most significant thing I took away from watching this film is that Racheal Weisz (I think that is her name) is really, really hot -- even covered in mud and guts. I had major problems with the Hollywood-izing of this picture. It is just so sad that filmmakers beleive they have to spoon-feed history to movie-goers. Way too much emphasis on individuals when they should have spent more time with the battle itself, especially more from the german perspective. It ended up being just a typical good guy vs. bad guy type of movie when it could have been so much more. Saving Private Ryan is still far and away a better film in every respect. The most annoying part -- why use British actors?? Why didn't they get Russian actors that can speak English -- it would have been much more convincing.

Did you mean to completely ignore this entire thread or was it an accident. Most of the disscussion is about the lack of Russian accents and such. At first I was PO'd because you seemed to blatently fall into the catagory of someone who can't enjoy a movie past the history lesson, then I realized that you had completely ignored THE ENTIRE THREAD, not just my contribution.

AAAAAAAAAAAAARG!

[This message has been edited by Guy w/gun (edited 03-18-2001).]

[Bimmer]

Perhaps my initial comment was not specific enough. I was not looking for a documentary or an SPR clone. I was looking for film that at least did not bombard me with cliches and/or outright stupidity (the German major in his private luxury rail car who manages somehow to stay scrupulously clean throughout the movie, the Russian sniper with his own press agent, the German senior officer taking a shower in an exposed open position that close to the front, the female Russian sniper wearing lipstick throughout the movie, etc.) I don't really care if they include plot elements that are supposed to broaden the viewer demographic - I just hate silly oversights (or worse, conscious decisions) that detract from what could otherwise be a decent movie.

[Guy w/gun]

Originally posted by Bimmer:

I just hate silly oversights (or worse, conscious decisions) that detract from what could otherwise be a decent movie.

Detract from a decent movie eh? And just what would be your idea of decent? A taste-the-dirt realistic portraying of Stalingrad?

1. If the answere is yes, then you my friend are in the minority. Hollywood is out to make a buck, even if it means taking license with history.

2. Did you even read my post? I guess you feel that Picasso's just an uneducated dumbass. He doesn't know a morter from a grenade, and if he did he would have painted a more accurate depiction of the Spanish civil war.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Guy w/gun:

Detract from a decent movie eh? And just what would be your idea of decent? A taste-the-dirt realistic portraying of Stalingrad?

1. If the answere is yes, then you my friend are in the minority. Hollywood is out to make a buck, even if it means taking license with history.

2. Did you even read my post? I guess you feel that Picasso's just an uneducated dumbass. He doesn't know a morter from a grenade, and if he did he would have painted a more accurate depiction of the Spanish civil war.

Let's be fair - those sound like legitimately silly oversights that could have been avoided. And Picasso may or may not have been uneducated, but I wouldn't give a plug nickel for any of his crappy paintings. To each his own.

[Guy w/gun]

Gee way to miss my point! Lets just say this. Ever heard of "artistic license"? I fully support it! Imagine a world with out it.

I'm not even going to comment on the remark of Picasso. Understand him or not, his early work was a major progression in art at the time. (And in no way am I saying that EATG is a milestone in cinema, but the analogy is still valid.)

[Guy w/gun]

Why do I get the feeling that you guys would scold your kids for painting pink and green horses "outside the lines" and having the "oversight" to portray people with 12 fingers?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Guy w/gun:

Gee way to miss my point! Lets just say this. Ever heard of "artistic license"? I fully support it! Imagine a world with out it.

I agree with you, but let's talk about willing suspension of disbelief. My threshhold is very high, which means I can enjoy movies that others (grogs, art majors, etc.) would hate.

But if someone walks around sparkling clean in a movie where everyone else is muddy - kind of kills it.

I could buy the clean uniforms in To Hell and Back because I take into account when it was made. Had anyone in SPR been as sparkling clean, that would be a little less forgiveable.

SPR has raised the bar (along with Platoon and a succession of other movies). If EATG had been a 1960s movie, it would be applauded by grogs today as a bright shining beacon in an era of darkness. Today, it has stiffer competition.

Bearing in mind that I agree with the proposition that not all movies are "war movies" - like Pearl Harbor, which I'm looking forward to seeing, even if "war" footage is only a fraction of the film.

[Guy w/gun]

The fact that the Maj. had a clean uniform and train car was a big cinamatic hint. It was to show the differences between the rival snipers. One was a young, talented, farm boy. The other an upstanding German officer, talented but also expirienced with age. Almost aristocratic. As the political officer said, it all had to do with class struggle.

This is the essence of attempting to make a good story. I honestly don't think the writer cared if the Maj. appeared to be too clean. His character was made that way to support the story and underlying themes.

All this brings to mind Tom Clancy. While his books are top notch, I wouldn't consider him a great story teller. He may pay attention to detail when it comes to the implements of war, but his books are more serialized than the "Once upon a time-The End", definate beggining and end feel that stories have.

I think that the writers and directers were trying for more of a story approach than a war movie approach. I would probably enjoy it either way.

[This message has been edited by Guy w/gun (edited 03-18-2001).]

[civdiv]

I haven't seen the movie, but I have to state my initial reaction. Though I will undoubtedly se it (thorugh rental), and probably end of owning it, the commercial trailer turned me off to it. Why? Because I'm a big Paul Carrell (Did I spell it right?) fan and regard his book as one of my personal top 10 WWII books of all time. To see his enterprise reduced to a relatively minor chapter of the battle, the Wermacht's best sniper against the Russian's best, is a bit much.

However, as I stated before, I will undoubtedly will both view it and buy it.

As a curious aside, can anyone point me at a copy of 'The Guns of ....... (Something)', the movie mentioned in Col Hackowrth's <u>About Face</u>?

[GriffinCheng+]

OT, but one excellent spoof from User Friendly:

Griffin.

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"When you find your PBEM opportents too hard to beat, there is always the AI."

"Can't get enough Tank?"

Come to my Combat Missing Command Post (CMCP) at http://www.angelfire.com/games3/CMCP/

[This message has been edited by GriffinCheng+ (edited 03-18-2001).]

[Guest Andrew Hedges]

Originally posted by civdiv:

I haven't seen the movie, but I have to state my initial reaction. Though I will undoubtedly se it (thorugh rental), and probably end of owning it, the commercial trailer turned me off to it. Why? Because I'm a big Paul Carrell (Did I spell it right?) fan and regard his book as one of my personal top 10 WWII books of all time. To see his enterprise reduced to a relatively minor chapter of the battle, the Wermacht's best sniper against the Russian's best, is a bit much.

>?

Umm, Enemy at the Gates was written by Wm. Craig.

But this is a movie that, if you're going to see it, should be seen in the theatre. There are very neat shots of Stalingrad that won't look nearly as good on a television.

WRT to the "press agent" comment -- Zaitsev *was* a press sensation at this time, and his picture *was* in all of the papers at this time. That's why he had a political handler; because he was a valuable political tool. If you don't like this, take it up with Stalin.

I actually liked how, despite the fact that Z. was a good sniper, he maybe wasn't as super as all of the newspaper accounts made him out to be.

[TeAcH]

I think the bottom line is a movie can't satisfy everyone...period. I thought this movie was boring. Gimme me an East Front SPR and Im a happy camper. You can keep and enjoy this gritty soap opera all you want.

TeAcH

[grunto2]

Originally posted by Mr. Johnson-<THC>-:

Teach if you think Pearl Harbor is going to leave out a love story, you will be very disapointed. I could easily look past any cute niceities and just enjoy a new war movie I've never seen. But Pearl Harbor will not even be worth the 3 dollars of a afternoon show and Enemy at least was worth 3 or 4 bucks. If you want to see how bad Pearl Harbor is going to be go see "The Rock" and a "Thin Red Line".

i wonder if that pearl harbor movie will show any glimpses of female leg in seamed stockings... that would be realistic for the time period.

so if they can throw in some seamed stockings (with reinforced heel) in with the romance angle, it should be ok.

=laugh=

andy

[Capt. Ayers]

Just saw the movie this afternoon. I thought it was ok. Definitely started better than it ended. In terms of language, I didn't mind the British accents as much as some English terms used, like "you look smart in that new uniform". Also, it seemed awkward that all the other Germans outside of scenes with Ed Harris spoke German. I think it would have been better to have Ed Harris speak German with subtitles. At least it would be consistent.

Would have enjoyed more battle scenes to better portray the massiveness of destruction and suffering that occured in Stalingrad on both sides, but the days of movies showing more than a couple of big battle scenes are gone. I doubt we'll ever see a movie on the scale of A Bridge Too Far in the near future. (CMII will have to satisfy that urge.)

Surprisingly enough, the love story didn't distract me as much as I thought it would. As others have said before, there were women in the Russian army so it doesn't feel too Hollywoodized.

My two cents, feel free to agree or disagree.

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[Dogface]

Originally posted by GriffinCheng+:

OT, but one excellent spoof from User Friendly:

****SNIP*****

LOL Oh that kills me

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kill -9 windows

#!/bin/sh

echo "What's your username again?"

read LUSER

rm -rf /home/$LUSER

echo "Hmm. I can't find anything..

[panzerpete]

Originally posted by civdiv:

I haven't seen the movie, but I have to state my initial reaction. Though I will undoubtedly se it (thorugh rental), and probably end of owning it, the commercial trailer turned me off to it. Why? Because I'm a big Paul Carrell (Did I spell it right?) fan and regard his book as one of my personal top 10 WWII books of all time. To see his enterprise reduced to a relatively minor chapter of the battle, the Wermacht's best sniper against the Russian's best, is a bit much.

However, as I stated before, I will undoubtedly will both view it and buy it.

As a curious aside, can anyone point me at a copy of 'The Guns of ....... (Something)', the movie mentioned in Col Hackowrth's <u>About Face</u>?

Yes, the full title was "The Guns of Navarrone" I beleive.

[Kettenkrad]

I had alot of problems with this movie, most of which revolve around pacing. Since the director realized that he had a bloodfest on his hand once he had filmed the most exciting parts of the movie, he decided to back off and augment the love story/kid story/political moral aspect. This part of the story was all jammed into the middle of the movie. So much more could have been done to reflect the misery and other characteristics of the historical setting, but instead of saying "we're dirty and miserable" it said, "we're dirty and starving but were happy and OK".

These are the signs of a true Hollywood movie. You have to accept them if you want to get all of the great visuals and special effects. Despite these issues, the movie was actually pretty good, because it seemed well researched and LOOKED good.

But if your a general, why would you take time off to take a shower in an area that was 'secured' only seconds before?

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This is difference between the American and the Japanese point of view in World War II

Japanese: "We'll kill you even if we have to run into you to do it"

Americans: "We'll kill you, and we don't even have to run into you to do it."

[panzerpete]

Originally posted by Guy w/gun:

Did you mean to completely ignore this entire thread or was it an accident. Most of the disscussion is about the lack of Russian accents and such. At first I was PO'd because you seemed to blatently fall into the catagory of someone who can't enjoy a movie past the history lesson, then I realized that you had completely ignored THE ENTIRE THREAD, not just my contribution.

AAAAAAAAAAAAARG!

[This message has been edited by Guy w/gun (edited 03-18-2001).]

What do you mean ignoring the entire thread? Isn't the whole point of this discussion for giving one's opinion about the film? My above caveats are simply made to further discussion on the subject. I felt that the film was well-done for what it obviously set out to do -- and that was to have something for everybody -- these are businessmen forking up the dough for the movie after all. It is yet another case of a movie trying to be everything, and, while falling a little short in every category, manages to be a classic example of the sum being greater than it's parts.

[killmore]

I thought this was NAZI propaganda BULL.

Watch it - there might be SPOILER here.

And pardon my spelling.

1) Number of germans killed 10, number of soviets killed 300. Thats the number that german propaganda always claimed.

2) German sniper was always better. Soviet one had always help. Kid, other guys, finally in the end his "friend". He could not get the german for the longest time even with all the help. German alone did so much more.

3) Human wave attacks are pure german propaganda. (After 1941, winter 1942). I really don't think there were any in Stalingrad. It was house to house fighting not soviet attacks on well prepared germans over open field!

4) There was no panic after first attack in september. Nothing like constant soviet panic shown in the movie.

5) There were always less soviets in Stalingrad then germans. Reserves/Replacements were put in very carefully - just enough of them to hold on. Not the way it was shown. Most reserves were not sent to Stalingrad but were held back for the attack.

6) Soviet airforce was quite active. Unlike in movie where it did not exist. Just take a look at number of german plane losses over stalingrad.

7) Germans were always cool and they were mostly defending themselves in the movie. No foolish attacks but always a well prepared resistance against enemy hordes.

8) Germans often called russians a mongolian horde. I guess that is why they included mongolian in the movie.

9) There was a message that Germans were not the only ones "mistreating" the jews. (I am not saying that USRR was good to them. It was not.)

10) I don't think any suisides by high ranking officials as shown. Chuikov was there from the beginning and ended up in Berlin.

11) Soviet system looked so bad it feels like it is actually better to serve Hitler.

12) I fail to see why german were not able to take Stalingrad! After all after first human attack in the movie there was nothing left to stop them from rolling on to Volga. (Maybe ammo shortage?)

Common guys can't you see this is the way the Nazi propaganda would like to show it. (except they would have won in the end)

Soviets wanted you to think that there were human wave attacks in Stalingrad. That they had no tactics and little skill.

They wanted USA to believe that it will be easy to stop any soviet attack because they will use human waves again and US GI will kill them all.

If you add up the Soviet population numbers it becomes quite obvious that Soviet Union was incapable of launching human attacks all the time. By fall 1942 80 million of soviet population was under german occupation. Population of germany and its allies was equal to the remaining soviet population. Soviet union also kept large army on border with japan occupied china. And about 2 million men were in prison camps.

[This message has been edited by killmore (edited 03-19-2001).]

[Mark IV]

Saw it, liked it.

There were some obligatory scenes and I'm not talkin' 'bout the squad room grope.

As for realism, it gave the flavor and the scope of Stalingrad as I've always read about it. The notion that you could make a watchable film of a detailed 500+-page history is ludicrous. This was more like Stalingrad was than anyone else has gotten into 2 hours or so. The PZs looked good, although I was puzzled about the rear of the turret in some quick background shots.

I was agitated about the German sniper's apparently whimsical switch to the War Merit Cross, and happy with the ultimate explanation (I was gonna have a hard time with it otherwise... I still have some reservations about a Major, with the Knight's and Oaks, wearing it into battle, but it's a flavor thing...)

Tactical Q: Why didn't Harris just blast the scope/action of the sniper rifle when it was laying in plain view? Kill the rifle, kill the man?

Bummer about the kid but we had to remind people that the Nazis were Nazis, eh? And the blame was thick with trowel on the adults who put him in the role... either directly, or indirectly, by making the larger-than-life hero of Zaitsev in the first place.

Is the irony of a movie making a larger-than-life hero ("for a buck", and the rest of you are volunteer workers?), out of a peasant who was made into a larger-than-life hero for propaganda purposes, lost here?

Sorry for those who felt robbed. Overall, I left feeling more like I'd seen Stalingrad for real, than any movie before. Tell me what movie showed it better. The river crossing at the beginning was horribly great. A lot was dramatized, or more correctly, stylized, to try to show the whole grisly scope in the time allotted.

The battle scenes sucked? Should have been more elaborately choreographed? The historical choreographers were the commissars and the MG42, and that's not a team noted for delicacy. Shooting war's a big confused hairy mess and triply so in an urban environment. It was only a canvas for the story anyway, and a damned effective one. I doubt the majority of the movie-going public would cheerfully shell out to see German Infantry Tactics faithfully reenacted.

If you haven't seen it yet, of course you will, and I hope you make it to the big screen version. Anything less would be a mistake.

[Berlichtingen]

Originally posted by killmore:

2) German sniper was always better. Soviet one had always help. Kid, other guys, finally in the end his "friend". He could not get the german for the longest time even with all the help. German alone did so much more.

Um, Ithink you missed an important part of the story. The Russian was more a creation of the political officer, where as the German was a professional

[Freak]

killmore Said:

Soviet system looked so bad it feels like it is actually better to serve Hitler.

Hehe. It might have been...in the begining of the war that is

Commie lover