Enemy at the Gates 2001

Ebert & Roeper: Read more

Susan Stark, Detroit News: Although it is not without flaw, Enemy at the Gates makes its point in compelling fashion. Read more

Jane Sumner, Dallas Morning News: As so often happens, the good stuff gets diluted with requisite pap and banal dialogue a love triangle, lackluster sex, betrayal and redemption. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: It's this human understanding of an inhuman conflict that gives Enemy At The Gates so much power, despite its defects. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Enemy at the Gates has its deficiencies, but the first-rate cast is not among them. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: There's never much risk of reality intruding--just a lot of histrionic James Horner music nd plenty of designer stubble on the soldiers' faces. Read more

David Edelstein, Slate: The film, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, doesn't stint on mud, corpses, or rubble, but the focus is all screwed-up. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The cat-and-mouse scenes between the two snipers are electric. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Large and ungainly, this World War II tale of a sniper duel that parallels the bloody battle for Stalingrad has an indisputable visual power, but it's nothing you'd want to have a conversation with--or, for that matter, about. Read more

Louis B. Parks, Houston Chronicle: Impressive visually, with great sets and a grim feel of massive tragedy. Read more

Paul Tatara, CNN.com: An elaborate, character-driven World War II epic that gets the war right, but pretty much fumbles the characters. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: A simplified 'happy' hero's story. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Airplanes arrive as regularly as the groaners in Enemy at the Gates. Read more

Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: It's as if an obsessed movie nut had decided to collect every bad war-movie convention on one computer and program it to spit out a script. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: As fascinated as I was by the historical backdrop against which the struggle occurs, I found it difficult to care one way or another about which characters lived or died. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: It's remarkable. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: A tense and artful war film that works both as thrilling spectacle and as intimate drama. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: After Enemy at the Gates teases us with the promise of something big, it's hard to be happy with a small-scale story. Read more

Time Out: Set-pieces get you so far (and Annaud delights in blowing this set to pieces), but the script's shortcomings aren't camouflaged by the decision to adopt Home Counties' accents as the film's lingua franca. Read more

Mike Clark, USA Today: The story hits and misses for more than two hours following its opening artillery bloodbath. Read more

Derek Elley, Variety: Shows a consistent inability to generate any kind of drama when characters open their mouths. Read more

Amy Taubin, Village Voice: Hackneyed material. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: This movie may seem to some like little more than boys' war games. But director Annaud, who wrote this with Alain Godard, knows how to milk the suspense. Read more