Description: Enemy at the Gates opens with a pivotal event of World War II--the German invasion of Stalingrad--recreated in Saving Private Ryan-like epic scale as ill-trained Russian soldiers face German attack or punitive execution if they flee from the enemy's advance. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud captures this madness with urgent authenticity, creating a massive context for a more intimate battle waged amidst the city's ruins. Embellished from its basis in fact, the story shifts to an intense cat-and-mouse game between a Russian shepherd raised to iconic fame, and a German marksman whose skill is unmatched in its lethal precision. Vassily Zaitzev (Jude Law) has been sniping Nazis one bullet at a time, while the German Major Konig (Ed Harris) has been assigned to kill Vassily and spare Hitler from further embarrassment. There's love in this war, too, as Vassily connects with a woman soldier (Rachel Weisz), but she is also loved by Danilov (Joseph Fiennes), the Soviet officer who promotes his friend Vassily as Russia's much-needed hero. This romantic rivalry lends marginal interest to the central plot, but it's not enough to make this a classic war film. Instead it's a taut, well-made suspense thriller isolated within an epic battle, and although Annaud and cowriter Alain Godard (drawing from William Craig's book and David L Robbins' novel The War of the Rats) fail to connect the parallel plots with any lasting impact, the production is never less than impressive. Highly conventional but handled with intelligence and superior craftsmanship, this is warfare as strategic entertainment, without compromising warfare as a man-made hell on Earth. --Jeff Shannon
Price: 7.95 AUD
Location: Northam, Western Australia
End Time: 2025-02-15T05:39:00.000Z
Shipping Cost: 13.48 AUD
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Item Specifics
Return shipping will be paid by: Buyer
Returns Accepted: Returns Accepted
Item must be returned within: 30 Days
Type: Dvd
Region Code: DVD: 4 (AU, NZ, Latin America...)
Format: DVD
Release Year: 2001
Language: English
Rating: MA15+
Actor: Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Gabriel Thomson, Mario Bandi, Sophie Rois, Eva Mattes, Matthias Habich, Ivan Shvedoff, Joseph Fiennes, Bob Hoskins, Ron Perlman, Mikhail Matveev, Hans Martin Stier, Clemens Schick
Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Genre: Action & Adventure
Run Time: 125 Mins
Movie/TV Title: Enemy at the Gates
Studio: Roadshow
