There's so much that's good about this film, and so much that's terrible. Had they stuck with the sniper duel, they would have been golden, but the tacked-on Romantic Plot Tumor completely derails the movie at times. The character development is patchy, and some of their decisions are outright stupid. It tries, so hard, to justify Tania's choice to be a sniper rather than a translator, but never succeeds. Danilov also seems to be played up as a creep even though it doesn't wash with the rest of his characterization, and the suddenness with which he turns on Vasily is jarring (and stupid, given he tries to use the propaganda machine to smear Vasily despite the morale that propaganda is raising).
The atmosphere of the film is great, at least. It conveys the bleakness of war very well, including the callous disregard for the dead: in such a situation, a person sort of has to do that to keep their sanity. Everyone is realistically filthy (which makes that sex scene somewhat squicky), and I did appreciate that there are no would-be superheroes: Vasily is held up as one in propaganda, but the film shows just how dangerous that actually is. He's a good marksman, but he's only human, and he survives several of his encounters with Konig by sheer luck. Even Khrushchev expects him to take out Konig in a hurry, ignoring the fact that Vasily is not the perfect soldier the propaganda machine has made him out to be. Konig is older, more experienced, and better-armed, and Vasily seems to be the only one who realizes how dangerous the situation actually is.
Unfortunately for the movie, Konig is the most interesting character, even though he has the fewest lines. He's the only one who's allowed to have any moral ambiguity, and the fact that he seems to genuinely regret crossing his Moral Event Horizon just makes him all the more chilling. Up until then, he just seems like a guy doing a job, without much love for the Third Reich: he came here to kill Vasily, and that's what he's going to do. The cat-and-mouse game between the two is easily the best part of the movie, creating genuine tension that should have been the film's sole focus. Konig and Vasily are a study in contrasts; they share skill as snipers but are otherwise polar opposites, and some of the most riveting parts of the film are when they're silently tracking one another through the ruins of Stalingrad. It's a pity the movie didn't know what a good thing it had, and had to go and ruin it with a tepid love triangle.
Film Half of a Great Movie
There's so much that's good about this film, and so much that's terrible. Had they stuck with the sniper duel, they would have been golden, but the tacked-on Romantic Plot Tumor completely derails the movie at times. The character development is patchy, and some of their decisions are outright stupid. It tries, so hard, to justify Tania's choice to be a sniper rather than a translator, but never succeeds. Danilov also seems to be played up as a creep even though it doesn't wash with the rest of his characterization, and the suddenness with which he turns on Vasily is jarring (and stupid, given he tries to use the propaganda machine to smear Vasily despite the morale that propaganda is raising).
The atmosphere of the film is great, at least. It conveys the bleakness of war very well, including the callous disregard for the dead: in such a situation, a person sort of has to do that to keep their sanity. Everyone is realistically filthy (which makes that sex scene somewhat squicky), and I did appreciate that there are no would-be superheroes: Vasily is held up as one in propaganda, but the film shows just how dangerous that actually is. He's a good marksman, but he's only human, and he survives several of his encounters with Konig by sheer luck. Even Khrushchev expects him to take out Konig in a hurry, ignoring the fact that Vasily is not the perfect soldier the propaganda machine has made him out to be. Konig is older, more experienced, and better-armed, and Vasily seems to be the only one who realizes how dangerous the situation actually is.
Unfortunately for the movie, Konig is the most interesting character, even though he has the fewest lines. He's the only one who's allowed to have any moral ambiguity, and the fact that he seems to genuinely regret crossing his Moral Event Horizon just makes him all the more chilling. Up until then, he just seems like a guy doing a job, without much love for the Third Reich: he came here to kill Vasily, and that's what he's going to do. The cat-and-mouse game between the two is easily the best part of the movie, creating genuine tension that should have been the film's sole focus. Konig and Vasily are a study in contrasts; they share skill as snipers but are otherwise polar opposites, and some of the most riveting parts of the film are when they're silently tracking one another through the ruins of Stalingrad. It's a pity the movie didn't know what a good thing it had, and had to go and ruin it with a tepid love triangle.