I never saw a preview for this movie or read anything about it, so I had no expectations. And for that reason, I found it to be decent as a personal story-telling war movie, set amidst the much larger context of the Battle of Stalingrad. In that sense, the movie is akin to Saving Private Ryan: Small units, individual soldiers and moment-to-moment, life-and-death struggles in the chaos of war.
The movie does some things really well: Special effects are good. Small unit weapons and individual combat realism are accurate to WW2. The "big" war scenes, like the Stukas strafing Russian troops on the Volga, were well depicted. The characters are conflicted, capable of both decency and horrible brutality. The broken German officer and his beautiful but cowed Russian woman not being able to communicate their initial hate and later, their love, created unique tension in the movie.
Great movie? No. But I think most people who like war movies that focus on a tactical scale rather than a strategic one will appreciate the realism presented here.
The movie does some things really well: Special effects are good. Small unit weapons and individual combat realism are accurate to WW2. The "big" war scenes, like the Stukas strafing Russian troops on the Volga, were well depicted. The characters are conflicted, capable of both decency and horrible brutality. The broken German officer and his beautiful but cowed Russian woman not being able to communicate their initial hate and later, their love, created unique tension in the movie.
Great movie? No. But I think most people who like war movies that focus on a tactical scale rather than a strategic one will appreciate the realism presented here.