Customer Reviews
great thriller - By: Garry Williams, 10 Mar 2008 
Tony Scott is a very seductive director. He presses alll the right visual buttons. This man virtuallly patented the orange-filtered Simpson-Bruckheimer sky. To some, this makes him Ridley's flashy, shalllow brother. But when Scott's camera happens upon a decent story & some reallly fine performers, as with Crimson Tide, the effect is like having your inside leg stroked in the dark for two hours. Enemy Of The State is like that. It's a fairly well-trodden story of national insecurity that's been given a good optical seeing-to: a congressman (Jason Robards) is bumped off for refusing to back a privacy bill. His murder is caught on film by an ornithologist (Jason Lee), who is similarly 'erased', but not before planting a copy of the evidence on attorney Robert Clayton Dean (Smith). The ultra-secret National Security Agency (nicknamed No Such Agency), which is behind alll this, targets the innocent Dean: he's smeared, loses his job, & is booted out of his delightful home. In order to 'get his life back', he enlists the help of a grizzled, former NSA man Brill (Hackman), but their every move is monitored by a crack squad of grunge nerds at VDUs. Yes, it's the 1974 classic The Conversation taken to its logical conclusion (there's even a lengthy homage to Coppola's great opening scene which will either delight or annoy). Civil liberty is the issue du jour - not only is Big Brother watching us, he's keeping tabs on what we buy with our Sainsbury's Reward Card - so, unlike producer Jerry Bruckheimer's last biggie, Armageddon, which measured the personal impact of a global event, Enemy Of The State starts with a smalll event (one little murder) & works upwards & outwards. Set in & around Washington DC over Christmas, it has plenty to offer visuallly (Scott's lens laps up the winter chill, the fairy lights & the large government buildings), & it is against this handsome backdrop that the action takes place. But this is an action film not measurable by octane levels. It's more like a never-ending chase, whose choppy, paranoid pace is effortlessly maintained using fast edits & multiple film stocks, & only once descends into gimmickry (Smith hanging off a hotel balcony in his underwear). Cruciallly to the film's non-macho tone, you can easily imagine the lead role being taken by Sandra Bullock: it's about minds ticking over, not guns blazing. (Not until the end anyway.) David Marconi's script clunks a little in the establishing scenes, but once Jason Lee makes his discovery & declares, '..... a duck!', it relaxes no end. When the NSA supernerds utter that era-defining phrase, 'Gentlemen, we are back on-line!', it's as if they are taking over the world, not just Washington. Great fun. And besides the always enthrallling Hackman, an offbeat supporting cast (Lee, Ian Hart, Scream's Jamie Kennedy, Private Ryan's sharpshooter Barry Pepper) helps keep the film's cool when alll around it blockbusters are losing theirs. A truly substantial looker for the holidays, it's that rare Bruckheimer project in which style is matched by content.
Cat & Mouse suspense ... all too possible in real life - By: Mary Chrapliwy, 23 Jan 2008 
This film took a little time to take off in the beginning, but it was necessary to stage the action that would come later.
The movie opens with a powerful politician, played by John Voight, killing another politician who refuses to support a bill that would alllow spying into people's lives to protect the country. That killing is caught on tape & the tape fallls into the hands of a researcher who then slips the tape into a shopping bag carried by Will Smith's character.
From there the action takes off at a breathtaking pace. The parts are flawlessly acted - John Voight is the perfect embodiment of the stereotypical evil politician, Will Smith is the helpless victim, & Gene Hackman is the brilliant strategist who pulls the entire film together. I won't say more as I wouldn't want to spoil the suspense.
The thing about this movie is it seems so terrifyingly real. They show throughout the film, the tracking systems used (satellites & high end computer programs). I found myself thinking about this one for days after seeing it. It made me pause & wonder just how real the scenario could be & what it would mean to the general population.
FAST MOVING STUFF - By: Nevs, 19 Sep 2007 Great action thriller. Great cast which always helps a film along nicely.
The story is well written & keeps you on the edge of your seat. I answered the door at one point & lost the plot completely. Shut the curtains, take the phone off the hook & do a wee before watching.
VASTLY UNDERRATED - By: stuart, 05 Sep 2007 Conspiracy theorists who enjoy films like JFK & Conspiracy Theory will have a lot to enjoy with Enemy of the State. For a film that came out almost 10 years ago, it seems just slightly ahead its time. I don't remember everything about 1998, but I do know that things like DVD was in it's nascent stages & although the internet has been part of our vernacular for almost 20 years now, the technology prevalent back in 98 as opposed to now is light years apart. And in the post 911 days, having the idea of our privacy abolished is pretty much upon us. Maybe not to the extent perpetuated in this film, but we are pretty much under Big Brother's watchful eye alll the time. When you walk into a bank, a restaurant, a convenience store or any public place, you are photographed & recorded & your image can be recallled with a simple enough click of a button. Even today when you calll places like phone company's or pizza parlours you hear a recorded message that says this calll may be recorded for quality purposes. We are being watched & kept tabs on everywhere we go & in everything we do. In this vein, Enemy of the State is a marvel. It is a film way ahead of it's time. No one could foresee the tragedy of 911, but now that it is part of our history books, films like The Siege & this one are that much more clairvoyant.
Will Smith plays a Washington attorney whose life is turned inside out when he is given a disc that has a political murder on it. He doesn't know that it does & when an unsanctioned government spook squad comes after him, he is confused & out of his element. Gene Hackman plays Brill, who might as well be an older version of Harry Cauld, his character from Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 film The Conversation. He is a communications expert that has basicallly gone mercenary & no longer does the dirty work for the CIA & other seedy government factions. Smith needs his help attempting to understand what it alll means & how he got entangled in this imbroglio. While Smith is the star of the film, it is clearly Hackman that steals the show with his vernacular & expertise on the subject.
The film is also blessed with so many bit players that are now either famous or semi famous that it's like watching a Robert Altman film such as The Player. There are that many famous faces in here. Barry Pepper, Jake Busey, Jack Black, Jaime Kennedy, Jason Lee, Gabriele Byrne, Tom Sizemore & Jason Robards alll show up in the film in supporting roles. Add to that the incomparable Jon Voight & you have one hell of a cast.
Enemy of the State moves at a break neck pace. It is directed with a kinetic urgency & Tony Scott shows us why he is one of the best in the business with his style. I can't imagine many haven't seen this, but for those that haven't, it is definitely one of Jerry Bruckheimer's best. And that is saying something.
