Have you ever watched a movie where, as you slogged through it, you realized that they had packed every piece of action into the trailer – and that there was nothing left in the movie but fillers?

Have you ever watched a movie that was one hour 30 minutes long but it seemed like four hours?

Have you ever watched a movie where you wondered how in the world it got 75% on the Tomatometer?

Have you ever watched a movie where the very last second throws you for such a loop, you just scratch your head?

All that happened to me when I watched Enemy. Fortunately, there were four of us watching together, and the post-movie chatter was substantial.

Enemy was so surreal, so strange in its composition, especially with the way its “frame” was constructed, sandwiching the story between a bizarre opening scene and an even more jarring closing scene, that I didn’t know exactly what I was supposed to think afterwards.

So I give it credit for being disconcerting.

Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a bored history professor, who is disconnected from life, seems to like nothing and ignores his beautiful girlfriend. Empty, clumsy attempts at sex, drowsy grading of papers, robot-like commutes to work and no fun of any kind seems to fill his life.

Anthony Clair (Jaqke Gyllenhaal) is a small-time actor with a six-month pregnant wife who seems eerily similar to Adam’s girlfriend – blond, skinny, model-like. He too seems to be brooding and stumbling through his own life.

Through chance the two meet and set in motion a sequence of enigmatic events and unlikely, even surreal encounters, as things escalate, and he two end up seducing each other’s women. The outcome cannot be good.

The story plays entirely in Toronto, Canada. It makes the city look like a place where I’d never want to live. It does the city a disservice.

There is a good contingent of naked women and subtle eroticism, with the unusual scenes of a nude pregnant woman in a variety of scenes. A visit to an Eyes-Wide-Shut-like mystery club at the beginning definitely sets the stage for a surreal movie all the way through.

And why is the title Enemy? I have no idea.

Do I think this is a good movie? Not really.

Was I bored at times to the point of turning away? Yes.

But there was plenty of chatter about the film during and after the viewing amongst our little group that generated enough controversy for me to write a fairly long review about a lousy movie.

Rating: **