Enemy at the Gates

The Enemy might be at the Gates, but Vasilij Zajcev is on guard and you can almost sense him quoting Gandalf - “Thou Shall Not Pass!”

I have always been a great fan of sniper movies, and as I recall it my wife bought me this movie on VHS when we started going out. I think I must have watched it at least 10 times before we threw the VHS video out. Now my current streaming service suggested it to me, and I thought I would have another go at it. And yes! It is still a good movie!

There is no real surprises in it and it does end just like you expect it (sorry for the spoiler - if any), but each individual sniper setup is still very thrilling and each time you wonder who is going to come out victorious and how. I really like that.

I have always seen Jude Law as this squeaky clean, very confident lover boy with an oh-so-adorable british accent, but in this movie he is actually insecure, humble and quite dirty in literally every scene. That really show his diversity (and probably makes the girls love him even more).
Ed Harris playing the German major is perfect for his part and the same goes for Bob Hoskins as Khrushchev.

As mentioned before the sniper setups are really good, and the special effects are very appropriately not taking the focus while still being realistic and war-like scary. Well done.

I think my favorite quote is “The one with the rifle shoots, the other one follows. When the one with the rifle gets shot, the other one picks up the rifle and shoots!”.

Watch this if you like sniper movies, World War II movies or army movies in general.