Reviewed by Geno McGahee
I am a child of the 1980’s and of course, Dennis Quaid was a big thing at that point for a kid of 11, which I was at the time. He was in the great film DREAMSCAPE and the not so great film JAWS 3-D, but he was still something else because he was in DREAMSCAPE. I sort of lost my love of Quaid when he did GREAT BALLS OF FIRE. Why would I care how great his balls were? I guess that everyone is entitled to a bad movie about hot genitals, but before he burnt his sack, he did ENEMY MINE, a movie about acceptance and racism and aliens. Now, you are probably ready to run out to the local video store and rent this right now, but I will continue the review anyway.
We begin with a war between the humans and the dracs. The dracs are a race of reptoids that are fighting over territorial rights in space. The humans don’t know much about them and vice versa and that adds to the tension and hatred. Davidge (Dennis Quaid) is fighting on the human side against the dracs and has a firefight with one of them, but both craft are so severely damaged that they crash land on a deserted planet. That is when the drac and the human come face to face and learn how to live and love each other, despite the differences. Can you say Brokeback Enemy Mine?
Jeriba is the drac, played by the very talented Lou Gossett, JR. I love Gossett, JR. (as an actor), and love most of the movies that he’s been in. IRON EAGLE, DIGGSTOWN, TOY SOLDIERS, and, get ready for this, JAWS 3-D! I think that getting Gossett, JR., and Quaid together is a special thing and the producers thought that they wasted it in that God awful JAWS film. So, they re-unite them and it feels so good in ENEMY MINE. With these two great actors together, you can’t lose, unless Quaid is wearing a freaking cowboy hat. If he’s wearing a cowboy hat, you know it’s a loser. It’s the Chuck Norris rule. Cowboy Hat, bad movie. No doubt about it.
The relationship between Jeriba and Davidge is a very intriguing one and watching them co-exist and bicker back and forth as well as dealing with the elements of the planet is very entertaining. You are glued to the screen in this one and Gossett, JR., plays lizard man very well, and you actually forget that it’s him and buy that he’s an alien. You begin to learn about the human’s perspective on the dracs and vice versa, and they slowly become friends, and amazingly, Jeriba becomes pregnant! Now, according to this film, dracs can get knocked up alone, but I’m not so sure. If you get two people together long enough, anything can happen. It’s that prison mentality and you have to assume that Davidge used his “balls of fire” here, right? I wouldn’t mind making it with an alien. If an alien abducts me, they’ll regret it…walking funny for weeks. Trust me.
Unfortunately (spoiler) Jeriba doesn’t make it through the pregnancy, leaving young Zammis (Bumper Robinson) to be raised by Davidge. Years pass and soon the planet that used to be unpopulated has visitors. Humans that rape planets for their resources, using the dracs as slaves, have invaded, and eventually take the young Zammis hostage. Enter another great actor in the late Brion James, playing the role of Stubbs. James always plays the villain and he does it here very well, and the dark side of humanity is shown. There is definitely some social commentary going on here with Davidge awakening from his bigotry and taking down the racist humans.
I really like this movie. I think that it shows that most racism stems from the lack of knowledge and Davidge learned how to love and the dracs realized that not all humans are shitheads. I want to hug an alien right now, I’m so inspired.
Scared Stiff Rating: 7.5/10. Who’s Jeriba’s baby daddy?
