 While the two become close friends and roommates, they are essentially opposites who often clash throughout the film.At the root of the conflict lies idealistic Sharapov's disagreement with Zheglov's "ends justify the means" approach to law enforcement.Zheglov, hardened and cynical from spending the war years in the rear fighting organized crime thinks that "a thief's place is in prison, and the public couldn't care less about how I put him in there".