--This week for our blog we had to watch a WW2 movie and do a summary about it. I got together with Austin K and Nick and we watched Enemy at the Gates. This movie is set during the siege of Stalingrad in 1923 and 1924.
--This movie starts as a young Vassili Zaitsev is learning to shoot a rifle. His grandfather is teaching him because his parents are dead and they are out in the forest starting down the sights at a wolf. They used a horse as bait and as the wolf approaches his grandfather keeps quietly telling him how he should be imagining himself and whatever he should be doing.
--He takes a shot at the wolf and it jumps back to the present time as Vassili is being transported across the Russia in a train car. This train is then evacuated and converted into a convoy headed for Stalingrad. He then is on a boat coming across the river into Stalingrad as part of the Russian army. German planes are taking out ships that are also doing the same thing and a couple fighters open fire on his boat cutting down many of his comrades. Some try to jump overboard to escape but the officers on the boat shoot them in the water to set the example that no one is to abandon the army. After they get off the boat some men are handed Mosin-Nagant rifles and some are handed ammo for those rifles.
--They are forced to charge the invading German line that is set up just outside the gates of Stalingrad where most of them are mowed down by the German machine gun nests. Vassili happens to not get a rifle but he somehow survives the charge and then the retreat as they were again cut down by the officers. He hides in a pile of the dead around a fountain to hide from the Germans.
--Then the movie transfers to Danilov as he tries to escape the artillery fire in his car. It is flipped and he manages to escape the car and run to the same fountain that Vassili is hiding. He hides under someone as a German patrol comes and shoots the bodies to make sure that they are all dead. He then gets up and grabs a rifle to take a shot at the five Germans across the field. Vassili reveals himself and takes the rifle and uses his 5 rounds to kill the 5 officers. Danilov who works for the Russian propaganda presses takes Vassili to the safe house where he convinces Vassili to let them play up his heroism.
--Vassili is transferred to a sniper division and Tania, a women he saw on the train, is transferred to the safe house as a intelligence interceptor because she can speak German. Vassili continues to kill German officers and he is finally considered so much of a threat that Major Konig, Germany’s best sniper in the area, is assigned to kill Vassili.
--Later they have to kill a sniper in a department store and Vassili apparently kills him with one shot. He goes to retrieve his dog tags and as they get near the window they saw that it was just a dummy with a gun and the real sniper was somewhere around there still because they found his still warm cigarette. As the building is bombed, Vassili’s comrade runs out of fear and is shot. Vassili escapes and runs into him later with three comrades. They shoot the power line to draw a repair man who they kill and one of them goes to investigate and is captured by the Major who then dresses him up as a German and sends him out to find Vassili’s position.
--After Vassili kills him, he repositions and they try to draw the Major’s fire by pushing a helmet into a window with a stick but he doesn’t take it. Vassili’s other comrade is shot when they jump across a gap, which was a near impossible shot, shaking Vassili’s nerves as he realizes what he is up against.
-Seeing the shot and how they were running and jumping across a small gap. I think that that shot should have been impossible especially since it hit him in the head. I think that the Major had to be the best sniper in the German army.
--Danilov is told by Khrushchev to get rid of the sniper division. He goes to talk to Tania about it and she tells him how she was taught to shoot and wanted to be put into the sniper division with Vassili. Danilov talks to him and tells him to show her how dangerous it is so she won’t want to join. When he talks to her she tells him that her parents were killed and he gives her Koulikov’s rifle, the man who was shot when crossing the gap.
--It shows Vassili sleeping and dreaming about the hunt against the wolf and what happened after the shot. It turns out that he had missed and that it had motivated him to continue shooting and getting better.
--Danilov recruits Sacha, who is a double agent to the Major. Sacha then tells the Major exactly where Vassili leaves the safe house and he sets up to wait for him. Vassili knowing this tries to go through the piping to the other side of the factory but is heard in the pipe and the Major goes into a kiln to wait by the end of the pipe. When Vassili comes out with his spotter, he realizes something is wrong and his spotter is shot. His spotter goes back and gets Tania who comes to find Vassili pinned down behind a dresser after glass falls from the ceiling letting the Major see his reflection. He doesn’t have his gun so he was Tania shine reflected light off of some glass into the Major’s face so Vassili has time to get a shot off where he hits the Major in the hand.
--After that Sacha tells them that the Major had yellow dust from the back of the factory on him so he goes there for an ambush. After waiting all night, Vassili doses off and misses his only shot at the Major and he has his papers stolen by a scavenger while the Major watches and assumes him dead. The Major realizes he was sold out by Sacha and he takes him out into the rail yard and hangs Sacha.
-I think that what he did to Sacha was really unfair because he was only trying to emulate his hero, Vassili, and that the Major was dumb to kill a child the way he did.
--Danilov and Tania convince Sacha’s mother to leave telling her that Sacha went over to the German side so he was safe. On the way to the ship an artillery shell hits near them and Tania is hit with Shrapnel and thought to be dead. Danilov thinks she is dead so he goes to Vassili who is waiting for the Major in the rail yard. Danilov doesn’t want to live anymore so he tells Vassili he is going to give away the Major’s position and sticks his head out and is shot. Vassili still didn’t see him so he waits until the Major gives up and comes to see if he really killed Vassili. As the Major walks across the yard he sees that he has been fooled and stops. He slowly turns to see Vassili standing about 50 yards away and as he sees him Vassili shoots him right through the eye.
--Two months later Stalingrad is abandoned by the Germans and Vassili finds Tania alive in a field hospital.
--I really like the movie because of its plot that you could never quite get a grasp on. I like how the scene with by the fountain was almost exactly the same as on COD World at War and we were really excited about the movie showing scenes that looked like that level in the game. I thought that it was good in the fact that it wasn’t afraid to show the shots as they hit the snipers in a very bloody fashion even if it was a little much at times. All in all the movie was really good and I would definitely recommend this movie to someone who was interested in a great action movie.
Source: The movie
The movie cover with Danilov on the left and then Vassili and Tania
Vassili waiting for a shot at the Major
The Major realizing he has walked into the trap
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