Enemy at the Gates (Movie)
I watched because it was highly recommended by a friend of mine, who told me that was one of the 'best movies ever'. Far from that my friends. The story is simple, two snipers trying to kill each other in the context of the battle Stalingrad during WW2. And as in every film that comes out of Hollywood, there's time for romance and there's a happy ending. Do I need to say more? Don't waste your time with this movie, go mow your lawn instead.
One thing interesting about that crappy film is that some things never change... Let me just my friends tell you what I dislike from that movie. First and foremost is the picture of the Battle for Stalingrad. There's a very good beginning: footage of conscript Russian soldiers jumping out of a train right into a boat to cross the Volga and straight into battle with no weapons at all. The cruelty of the Party officers with the soldiers and the tremendous killing that saw that city. But after that good beginning the movie tells a story of a nice battle, people sleep at night, fight during the day, have time to party and drink, even have time to visit their families in the city. In this battle just on the German side almost half a million troops were stationed in the Stalingrad area, of those the main push was in the hands of the sixth army that had 260,000 soldiers. At the end of the battle in late January 1943, 91,000 Germans were taken prisoners; and from these only 6,000 returned to Germany years later. All those who fought there, as seen in the historical pictures, were just ghosts of human beings. War is cruel and Stalingrad saw everything possible. America has a very romantic vision of war, always on the side of the big gun, don't (want to) realize that war is about killing and being killed. The movies fails to identify what really happen from September'42 till February'43.
Then comes the story. A Russian foot soldier who became from one day to the next a great hero, a sniper that will take down dozens of 'German Officers' a day. A hero to follow for the demoralize Russian troops. Yes, The Soviet Union promoting a hero in the middle of the battle, a repressive country that controls information... why this hero reminds me of Jessica Lynch, another 'war time hero' that was only on paper? And I order to hunt down this sniper, the Germans send a Mayor, the Director of the Sniper school all the way from Berlin, an aristocrat -as opposed to a Russian footsoldier, don't you love all these coincidences?
And if you think this is not enough there's time for love, for sex, for lies and everything else. I don't want to ruin the film for you but you pretty much can guess who kills who and who ends up with the girl -yes, she survives her injuries... of course.
The movie just fails to suck you in, and at a certain point you start asking to please cut through all this red tape and kill one of the snipers so that we can move on. In other words: Not worth watching!
One thing interesting about that crappy film is that some things never change... Let me just my friends tell you what I dislike from that movie. First and foremost is the picture of the Battle for Stalingrad. There's a very good beginning: footage of conscript Russian soldiers jumping out of a train right into a boat to cross the Volga and straight into battle with no weapons at all. The cruelty of the Party officers with the soldiers and the tremendous killing that saw that city. But after that good beginning the movie tells a story of a nice battle, people sleep at night, fight during the day, have time to party and drink, even have time to visit their families in the city. In this battle just on the German side almost half a million troops were stationed in the Stalingrad area, of those the main push was in the hands of the sixth army that had 260,000 soldiers. At the end of the battle in late January 1943, 91,000 Germans were taken prisoners; and from these only 6,000 returned to Germany years later. All those who fought there, as seen in the historical pictures, were just ghosts of human beings. War is cruel and Stalingrad saw everything possible. America has a very romantic vision of war, always on the side of the big gun, don't (want to) realize that war is about killing and being killed. The movies fails to identify what really happen from September'42 till February'43.
Then comes the story. A Russian foot soldier who became from one day to the next a great hero, a sniper that will take down dozens of 'German Officers' a day. A hero to follow for the demoralize Russian troops. Yes, The Soviet Union promoting a hero in the middle of the battle, a repressive country that controls information... why this hero reminds me of Jessica Lynch, another 'war time hero' that was only on paper? And I order to hunt down this sniper, the Germans send a Mayor, the Director of the Sniper school all the way from Berlin, an aristocrat -as opposed to a Russian footsoldier, don't you love all these coincidences?
And if you think this is not enough there's time for love, for sex, for lies and everything else. I don't want to ruin the film for you but you pretty much can guess who kills who and who ends up with the girl -yes, she survives her injuries... of course.
The movie just fails to suck you in, and at a certain point you start asking to please cut through all this red tape and kill one of the snipers so that we can move on. In other words: Not worth watching!
Jean-Francois was drunk at 3:37 PM
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