Stalingrad 1942. The Third Reich have swept through Europe and deep into the heart of Mother Russia. The Red Army and Hitler’s troops are engaged in bitter hand to hand combat amidst the ruins of the city.

Director Jean-Jacques Annaud’s World War II epic opens with an uncompromising depiction of the brutality of war as hundreds of newly arrived Russian soldiers attempt a near suicidal mission to cross the Volga into Stalingrad. Under heavy land and aerial bombardment, any man attempting desertion is shot down with a bullet from a Soviet officers pistol.

Finding themselves isolated amongst the fallen bodies of their comrades, Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law) and Commisar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes) make good their escape after Vassili demonstrates his impressive marksmanship skills with a rifle. Meanwhile, future Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev (Bob Hoskins) has arrived in Stalingrad and demands ideas to improve the peoples battered morale. Danilov, now a Senior Lieutenant, starts a propaganda campaign in the army newspaper about Vassili’s exploits and the farmers boy from the Ural Mountains, taught to shoot by his Grandfather, is transferred to the sniper division and rapidly becomes a national hero.

Having become friends, Vassili and Danilov both begin a romantic involvement with a girl from Stalingrad, Tania (Rachel Weisz) a Private in the local militia. With the Soviet snipers increasingly gaining the upper hand on their German counterparts, Major Erwin König (Ed Harris) is sent in to take out Vassili and crush the Russian peoples spirit.

So begins a deadly game of cat and mouse. The two protagonists are polar opposites. One, the shepherd boy with a steady hand and a sharp eye but with increasing doubts as to whether he can defeat his enemy. The other, the aristocratic German, supremely confident and equally adept with a snipers rifle. Vassili and Tania have meanwhile fallen in love and driven by jealousy Danilov attempts to discredit his friend to his superiors, resulting in fatal consequences.

Based on the 1973 non fiction book ‘Enemy at the Gates – The Battle for Stalingrad’ by William Craig, the film is a brilliantly told tale of conflict, love and betrayal and succeeds as not just a war film but also as an historical drama and love story.