Plot: During a war between humans and the reptilian Drac race, spaceship pilot Willis Davidge (Dennis Quaid) ends up stranded on an alien world, along with enemy fighter Jeriba Shigan (Louis Gossett Jr.). While both Willis and his Drac counterpart can breathe on the planet, the environment and its creatures are relatively hostile, forcing the two to work together to survive. As time goes by, Willis and Jeriba become unlikely friends, though their unique relationship faces considerable challenges.
I hadn’t watched Enemy Mine since I was very young so I remember very little about it. The other night I was scrolling through Disney Plus and it popped up, so I thought I would check it out as I had heard good things about it over the years.
Enemy Mine stars Dennis Quaid as Willis Davidge, a spaceship pilot in the future who crash lands on an alien planet and has to work with his sworn enemy Jeriba Shigan (Louis Gossett Jr.) in order to survive. As expected the two end up becoming friends despite their differences and end up embracing each other’s cultural differences. It’s a nice message that is still relevant today however, the real revelation here is Louis Gossett Jr. who is unrecognizable under all that make-up. He looks genuinely otherworldly and you wouldn’t even know it was him if his name wasn’t in the credits.
I was reading on IMDb that Louis Gossett Jr. said in a television interview that “he had talked while gargling saliva as a kid as one of those kid things. He told Wolfgang Petersen that he thought that it would add a good touch to his character. Gossett performed the odd vocalizations all by himself (no mouth prosthetics or post-production effects), and did “the Drac voice” at convention appearances before he passed away last year.
The first half of the film goes as predicted, but then things go in a different direction and became quite unpredictable. It’s a little slow at times focusing more on the journeys of the characters rather than constant action, but there is enough to keep things moving.
It opens with an aerial dogfight in space and the effects still mostly hold up; our two leads also try to avoid rogue meteor showers and scavengers throughout the film. The finale has some fights and shoot-outs and there are plenty of explosions.
Brion James shows up and this is one of his more hateful villain roles, but his comeuppance is certainly satisfying as he gets shot and falls into lava.
I always liked Dennis Quaid as he has that everyman quality and at one point I wanted him to show up in an Indiana Jones movie as Indy’s long lost brother. He has similar mannerisms to Harrison Ford and I’d love to see who could out grump the other.
Maurice Jarre provides the score and it’s not that memorable but is still decent enough to propel the story and characters along.
Overall, Enemy Mine still has relevant themes about tolerance and understanding while also giving us some enjoyable action scenes; the pacing does drag a little in the middle, but it makes up for it with an action packed finale.