A modest but gifted sharpshooting shepherd from the Urals, Vassili picks off five German officers. Ed Harris is terrific as the veteran aristocratic officer and marksman the Nazis send to kill Vassili. Carefully developed and superbly shot, the film becomes a struggle between two star sniper-athletes, each patiently trying to outwit the other. The moral differences between them are intelligently explored. The ending offers satisfaction and uplift rarely touched in action films.
Enemy is also about the price of fame, the waste of war and how politics uses and uses up people.
The cast is on the mark, especially Rachel Weisz as the Jewish military aide who loves Vassili and Bob Hoskins as the crude young Khrushchev who leads the city s defense. In doing so, it spoofs the heart of gangster-movie mythology. It s also money in the bank because it pairs Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt as Samantha and Jerry, the gorgeous romantic leads who bicker. Jerry, a low-level mob operative who wants to get out and get married, is sent to Mexico for the traditional one last job. His boss wants him to retrieve an ancient and elusive pistol that is the comic equivalent of the Holy Grail, with contradictory legends in every telling of its history.