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Reviews:
Enemy
at the Gates Rings True
by Michael Flanagan
Super
Enemy at the Gates was a fairly
decent
success at the box office, when it should have flooded
the seats of every theater. A war movie about
warring snipers, starring Joseph Fiennes, Jude Law,
and Ed Harris, including a deep male friendship, a
loving romance, and a tragedy, and NO ONE WENT TO SEE
IT! I would like to assume everyone was going to
see Memento, but I doubt it. Regardless, Gates
is a truly amazing movie.
The movie, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud of Seven
Years in Tibet fame, has clouded every scene with
a dull grayness that brings the mood as far from any
kind of jubilance one might have. This is
necessary for the setting--World War II, the Battle of
Stalingrad, right on the front. In one of the
first scenes, soldiers are horded onto a boat to motor
across the river to fight the front lines. Nazi
planes dive down and gun the tiny ship while two or
three soldiers shoot back. If they jump off
deck, their own superiors will shoot them dead in the
water. If they stay on the deck, chances are
they'll be shot by the planes, and if they do make it
to the other side, they'll probably be killed in the
fight, forced to charge at the shooting Nazis or be
killed, again, by their own men. And you feel
every tense moment of the struggle.
But the drama doesn't end with the War. The
characters are more intriguing and human than most
human dramas can muster. The developing
friendship between Law and Fiennes is beautiful,
tragic, and real. This is one of the rare times
that the story of a love triangle works within the
boundaries of reality. The Mummy's Rachel
Weisz is no beautiful librarian in this movie.
She is a child of the war, lost and dirty, and she
probably smells bad. But her character, and her
love, not to mention some quality acting ability that
can rival Julia Roberts any day, make her out to be a
beautiful woman, trapped in a life she shouldn't have,
but will gladly accept. The reality of this love
is carried even further into a sex scene that is
hardly that; as Fiennes and Weisz make love in a calm
moment of war, you realize that through all this
tragedy, and this hell, they're still human.
Ed Harris transcends the stereotypical role of the
villain to make his own human quality. This is
not good vs. evil, nor is it a likeable hero and a
likeable villain fighting as the audience decides who
to root for. This is two men doing their jobs,
and doing them well...exactly as they were trained to
do. They, like all the characters in Enemy at
the Gates, are human beings, living a life because
they have to. Reality in a war, without the
sentimentality--rare, but damn good. Rent it
when you can.
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