Enemy at the Gates (2001)

In the Academy Award-winning epic The Godfather Part II (1974), Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) famously says, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” This quote definitely applies to Enemy at the Gates (2001) since we would love to get close to the film’s leading lady Rachel Weisz. In the World War II drama, she plays Sergeant Tania Chernova, a Russian Jew who becomes the center of a love triangle involving Russian shepherd-turned-sharpshooter Vassili Zaitsev and his propaganda officer Commissar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes). In addition to being smitten with Ms. Chernova, the guys are involved in a deadly game of cat and mouse with history’s aristocratic German sniper Major Erwin König (Ed Harris) in 1942. Based on William Craig’s book “Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad” (1973), the story includes Nikita Khrushchev (Bob Hoskins), General Friedrich Paulus (Matthias Habich), Koulikov (Ron Perlman), and Mother Filipov (Eva Mattes) as it blends facts with fiction. Because Danilov fears for Tania’s safety, he has her transferred to an intelligence unit. But that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s out of harm’s way. Luckily for us, her keister is out of her fatigues when she gets busy with her man amid a bunch of men hiding underground. Of course, if any of these sleeping soldiers saw her nude booty they’d rightfully conclude that Ms. Weisz’s is the nicest! No wonder Mr. Skin feels the need to raise his flag as he lowers his drawers. Too bad his little general can’t really enter Rachel’s wunderbar back gate!