Enemy at the Gates
In 1942, a year after the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, Red Army soldier Vassili Zaitsev is on a train to Stalingrad, thinking about the time his grandfather taught him how to shoot a rifle while hunting. On the train with him, there are hundreds of other soldiers, but also various civilians, including Tania Chernova, who Vassili notices but doesn't dare to speak to. The civilians leave in the middle of the journey while the soldiers are dropped right in the middle of the Battle of Stalingrad. They need to board a boat to reach the front lines, and the enemy takes advantage of this, dropping bombs and opening fire on them as soon as they see them. Many soldiers fall, and when seeing this, others jump in the water trying to escape, only to be shot by their own superior officers for deserting. Once they reach the docks, only one of every two soldiers is given a rifle, the other is given bullets and instructions to follow the soldier with a weapon. The group is forced into a suicidal charge that the Germans easily overpower, and Vassili -who was given bullets- barely survives the assault by staying close to the ground and pretending to be dead. Once again, soldiers that try to escape are shot by their own side, considering them cowards and traitors. Soon the area is covered with bodies, with nobody alive in sight, until a few moments later, a car tries to cross the area. A tank shell hits it and knocks it over, and out of it comes Commissar Danilov, who rushes to hide inside a fountain, pretending to be another body in the pile and miraculously not getting killed when a group of Germans drive by and shoot at the bodies to make sure there aren't any survivors. Once they're gone, Danilov takes a rifle from one of the bodies and tries to shoot some soldiers he can see in a nearby building, but the weapon is out of ammo. At that moment, Danilov discovers he actually isn't the only one alive in the fountain: Vassili has been hiding there as well, and he asks him for his rifle so he can load it with the bullets he was given when he arrived. Vassili also tells him he should wait for an explosion to shoot so they aren't discovered, but since Danilov is a political commissar, his experience with weapons is limited, so he lets Vassili have the rifle instead. As another car with soldiers arrives, Vassili moves behind a hole on the fountain wall and as soon as he hears an explosion, he starts shooting each German one by one on the head with absolute efficiency. Hours later, once they have been rescued and taken back to headquarters, Danilov prints a series of pamphlets detailing Vassili's heroic feat. Many days later, Chairman Nikita Khrushchev arrives at Stalingrad to coordinate the defense of the city, since Stalingrad is a symbol of Stalin's power and they can't afford to lose it. Furious after hearing about yet another loss, he demands ideas from his subordinates on how to improve morale, but most of the soldiers just repeat the same ineffective tactics they've been using for years. Danilov however, proposes something different: he thinks that instead of punishment, they must deliver hope. They should create a hero and inspire people, to make them want to protect the motherland, and he has the perfect hero for that job. Danilov's idea is approved and he gets promoted to senior lieutenant. Vassili's face now appears in the newspaper, presenting him as an example to follow. He's also been promoted, in his case, to the sniper division. From then on, Vassili becomes the face of the Russian army, both a national hero and propaganda icon, and his exploits would appear on every edition of the army's newspaper, plus on pamphlets that would make their way all over the walls of the country. One day, during one of his missions, Vassili and his team are found by a young boy called Sacha Filippov, who admires Vassili. He invites him to his very humble home, where his mother Mrs. Filippov prepares him dinner as thanks for what he's done for their homeland. Soon after they make it there, Danilov arrives as well, bringing letters from Vassili's fans from all over the country. To keep up with the plan of hope and propaganda, Danilov makes him reply to all of them, although he's the one that tells Vassili what to write, especially since he has to help him with spelling. One more person arrives after they begin: Tania, the girl from the train, who is like a sister to Sacha and has become a private in the local militia. She's also fluent in German because she's studied at the university. Danilov wants to recruit her because they need more soldiers that understand German, but Tania would rather stay and fight, especially since the local militia are short on men. She changes her mind when Danilov explains how much she could help them by decoding Geramn intel, and that he'll send one dozen soldiers in exchange for every person that speaks German. Meanwhile, the German army is starting to suffer the toll Vassili and his team of snipers are causing in their ranks, so they summon German Major Erwin König, a renowned marksman and head of the German Army sniper school at Zossen. He's tasked with killing Vassili, and König prepares a plan to make Vassili come to him instead of doing the chasing. Some hours later, Vassili is woken up from a nap by his team because there's some trouble in the department store sector. Vassili shoots a shadow in the window and a helmet falls, so believing they've hit their target, he takes Ludmila with him to find the body. The companion they leave behind is shot as soon as they're gone. The duo makes it inside the department store and sneaks around until they reach the window, only to find that the shape they had seen is a mannequin posed to make it look like a sniper. This is obviously a trap, and when Vassili finds a cigarette butt on the ground he realizes their enemy is still there, watching them. He thinks they should take it easy and stay hidden until they think of a proper plan to escape, but as planes start arriving and bombing the area, Ludmila gets scared and runs away, giving König the perfect chance to shoot her, but Vassili escapes before König can do the same to him as well. König returns to the hideout he's staying at and gets his shoes cleaned by Sacha, who pretends to be an innocent bystander but is passing König information about Vassili in exchange for food so the major will trust him and share information of his whereabouts in return. When the Red Army learns that the Germans are using König, they bring over a former student of his, Koulikov, to teach Vassili how König thinks and help him kill him. Before returning to the field however, Vassili must attend a special party in his honor. After saying hello to Tania, he's dragged by Khrushchev to see the journalists, answer questions, take pictures and look at a giant Stalin painting, because according to Khrushchev, he's always watching over his country. Seeing the painting makes Vassili think of the day his grandfather taught him to shoot again, it turns out he failed his first shot and that allowed the wolf to reach their horse and eat it. Some days later, Vassili, Koulikov and another member of the sniper team, Volodya, enter an abandoned building where they have been told they could find König. As they sneak around as carefully as possible, they find a body in a shooting position, posed like the last trap: this means they're on the right track. After crossing an open area and luckily avoiding all bullets from the enemy, they manage to shoot two different repair guys before it's time for dinner. Volodya leaves his partners for a moment to retrieve the soup he had been heating in another room, but gets captured in the way. König and his team try to make him confess where Vassili is hiding, but since Volodya won't talk, they dress him up as their own and send him out to pretend he's another repair guy. Without knowing who it really is, Koulikov immediately kills him, revealing their location on purpose so when he makes a helmet appear at the window, the enemy will shoot it and reveal their location as well. König doesn't fall for the trap, so the duo decides to relocate, but when they jump an open section of the floor, König takes the chance and shoots Koulikov while Vassili escapes safely. This constant chase between Vassili and König is taking too long, and an impatient Khrushchev is starting to get on Danilov's back. After their meeting, Danilov goes to see Tania to bring her a gift and try to court her, but she surprises him by asking to be reassigned. Some hours later, Vassili returns to headquarters and his mood isn't the best: he's never seen a shot like he's seen today, and thinks König may be too good for him to beat. Danilov promises him they're getting new intel and that next time, Vassili will be one or perhaps even more steps ahead of him, so he has nothing to worry about. But he does ask for a favour in return: he wants Vassili to talk to Tania and convince her not to ask for that transfer. When Vassili tries to do so, Tania explains that she asked to be transferred because earlier in the morning, she learned her parents were among a group of prisoners that were executed by the Germans, and she wants to go there and fight. Understanding her need for revenge, Vassili gives her Koulikov's rifle. After Sacha shares information with both of them, König and Vassili go to the same abandoned building, thinking they will surprise the other. While König waits at an elevated platform, Vassili and his sniper partner enter through and hide behind the pipes, the shaking of which alerts König of their position. As soon as the duo tries to move, König shoots them, causing Vassili to lose his rifle and his companion to get hurt. Vassili sends his partner back to headquarters since he can't do anything in that state, and while the sniper makes his way back into the pipe, Vassili tries to recover his rifle by tying some rope to a knife and throwing it at the weapon to drag him towards him, but when he finally manages to land it correctly, König cuts the rope with an easy shot. When some German planes fly by dropping some bombs, they shatter the glass roof, and some of the shards fall in front of Vassili, giving König a full view of his face. At headquarters, Danilov is trying to convince Tania not to fight, that her skills are more valuable in the intellectual field. Their argument is interrupted by the returning sniper, who tells them what happened. Tania doesn't hesitate to go through the same pipe route to reach him in order to help, but as soon as he sees her, Vassili tells her to stay where she is and follow his plan. The same way König has been watching him through the glass, Vassili has also use a shard to watch him in return, and thanks to this he knows his location. He asks Tania to grab another piece of glass and turn it until the light reflects on it and blinds König, creating an opening for Vassili to safely recover his rifle and shoot him. He doesn't manage to kill König, but he does hurt his hand. Later, when Vassili and Tania return to headquarters, they celebrate being alive with the rest soldiers, and afterward, they hide under the covers and make love right in the middle of the communal bedroom. The next morning, Vassili asks Danilov to stop writing about him - he can't carry this weight on his shoulders anymore, and he wants to fight as a regular soldier. Danilov doesn't accept this and to manipulate Vassili into feeling bad for even asking, he brings over Sacha, who shows him how proud he is for having gotten intel from König. With the kid looking at him with some much hope in his eyes, Vassili can't say no, and he allows Sacha to guide him to the area where König will be waiting. The ground is covered with bodies, so Vassili hides among them and proceeds to wait for König to show up. There's an issue however: he spends so much time waiting there that he falls asleep. When König finally sees him from his hiding spot, he is about to shoot him, only to suddenly see a looting soldier appear between them, moving Vassili's body as if he were dead and easily stealing all his belongings. The German army captures this soldier and finds he stole Vassili's ID, which makes them think Vassili is dead. König doesn't agree, but he's dismissed anyway. Refusing to go home while Vassili may still be out there, König talks to Sacha again and, already suspecting what may be happening, tells him which his next location will be. At the Russian headquarters, Khrushchev finds out the Germans are passing around the news of Vassili's death and gets furious at Danilov, who doesn't believe it. Khrushchev doesn't care if it's true or not, he wants Danilov to do his writing magic and convince the public everything is fine. Afterward, Danilov tries to talk to Tania about her possibly traveling to his house, but they're interrupted when the loudspeakers start announcing Vassili's death as well. Danilov gets ready to write an announcement of Vassili's death as a hero, but at that moment, the man himself comes back. He explains how he missed his shot for falling asleep and that he had to stay hidden from a man trying to kill him, so Danilov accepts to transfer him. Then Vassili asks about Tania, and Sacha tells him he knew he was alive and told her, so she's gone to the station to find König and get revenge. Danilov and Vassili rush to the station to rescue her, and when they find her, Vassili and Tania kiss, causing Danilov to get incredibly jealous. So when he returns to headquarters, instead of writing his report about Vassili's heroism, he communicates to the world that Vassili became a traitor. What they aren't aware of is the fact König has seen them at the station, and now knows for sure that Sacha has been passing on the information, so he captures the kid and hangs him off a pole to bait Vassili. The one who almost falls for it when seeing the body though, it's Tania, and she doesn't go after König only because Vassili stops her, saying that's what he wants. They agree on a plan. While Vassili goes after him, Tania asks Danilov for a favor and together they go to see Mrs. Filippov to get her out of the country with a special pass Danilov got for her. Mrs Filippov doesn't want to leave without Sacha, but not to make her upset, instead of telling her Sacha died, they tell her he joined the Germans. Mrs. Filippov doesn't blame him for it if it means he's safe and accepts to leave with them. On the way to the boat, a bomb explodes near them, hurting Tania. Danilov thinks she's died and leaves, but Mrs. Filippov doesn't give up and convinces a doctor to let Tania board with her by showing her special pass and saying Tania is her daughter. Vassili and König are at a standoff in their respective hiding spots, not knowing where the other is. Danilov suddenly shows up next to Vassili, and now that Tania is dead, he thinks he has nothing else to live for and humanity isn't worth saving. As a way to make up for the lies he made up about Vassili, he sacrifices himself and comes out of hiding so König can shoot him and reveal his location. Vassili thinks ahead and doesn't immediately react, so now König thinks he's killed Vassili himself and comes out to check the body. Vassili is waiting for him midway, and as soon as he aims his rifle at him, König takes off his hat and accepts his fate. After killing him, Vassili takes his rifle and leaves it with Danilov's body. Two months later, after the Germans have surrendered, Vassili gets a letter from Tania, saying she's alive and being taken care of at a field hospital. Once the city is safe enough to travel, Vassili goes to the address on the letter and the couple happily reunites.
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