ENEMY OF THE STATE (Touchstone) Starring: Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Regina King, Loren Dean, Jake Busey, Barry Pepper, Tom Sizemore, Lisa Bonet, Gabriel Byrne. Screenplay: David Marconi. Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer. Director: Tony Scott. MPAA Rating: R (violence, profanity, adult themes) Running Time: 127 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Director Tony Scott presents what sometimes seems like a documentary on electronic surveillance in ENEMY OF THE STATE. His vehicle is the story of Robert Clayton Dean (Will Smith), a Washington D.C. attorney who unwittingly becomes embroiled in a conspiracy when a computer disk finds its way into his shopping bags. On the disk is evidence that a National Security Agency boss named Reynolds (Jon Voight) engineered the murder of a U.S. congressman (an uncredited Jason Robards) who would have killed legislation making it easier for the NSA to spy on citizens. Piece by piece Dean's identity is destroyed and accusations are trumped up against him, until the only chance he has left is a secretive former government operative known only as Brill (Gene Hackman).
It's a great button-pushing premise for a millenial-angst-heavy information age, full of shadowy government operations and technological voyeurism of every shape and form. Early on, however, Scott starts to fetishize all that technology. Satellites sweep across the sky from hundreds of miles above to pinpoint a fleeing target; microtransmitters are planted in shoes, pens and cell phones; phone and bank records betray every personal secret. The first time a chase scene spills over with surveillance details, it's effective and alarming. The second time, you start to notice that it drags scenes out much longer than they need to be. The third, fourth and fifth times, you wonder why the omniscient gadgetry is beginning to seem more cool than scary. Is this a movie about people oppressed by electronics, or a commercial for electronics?
Fortunately, the human angle is in the capable hands of Will Smith. In his first purely starring role -- no buddy cop, no aliens -- Smith continues to show the charisma of a star. He's a more effective hounded Everyman than you might expect, cracking wise when it serves the moment while generally handling his predicament with intelligence and resolve. Hackman arrives fairly late in the film to provide some requisite bonding moments, but mostly the weight of ENEMY OF THE STATE falls squarely on Smith's shoulders. He proves more than capable of handling it.
He also gets to work with an action/thriller script considerably more coherent than average. Dean's imperfect relationship with his wife (Regina King) links deftly into the conspiracy plot, as does the connection between Brill and go-between Rachel (Lisa Bonet). The resolution is a rushed disappointment -- mixing in a dopey mob sub-plot just when the table-turning pleasures of Dean and Brill watching the watchmen had been so promising -- but for nearly two hours it's pretty a effective story. With Scott keeping the pacing steady and intense, all the script needs to do is avoid situations so obviously stupid that you feel insulted. Marconi's script may not be impressive, but it's unobtrusive, which is one of the higher compliments you can pay an action/thriller script in 1998.
Still, there's the matter of all those gee-whiz shots of satellite cams, computer extrapolations and general manipulation of technology. Tony Scott has always been a director who never met a five-second piece of film he liked, and in ENEMY OF THE STATE it often proves distracting as he whips back and forth between Smith talking to someone and someone _listening_ to Smith talking to someone, a couple dozen times in the space of a minute. Sure it's unsettling to consider that the only privacy you may have is inside your head, but it's most unsettling if we connect with a character connecting with that reality the hard way. Will Smith provides that humanity almost in spite of Scott's inventory of spy gear. The director takes the edge off the edgy concept, turning in a solid thriller that hypes us up when it should be freaking us out.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 state secrets: 6.
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