Film review by Kevin Patterson
ENEMY OF THE STATE Rating: *** (out of four) R, 1998 Director: Tony Scott Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer Screenplay: David Marconi Starring Cast: Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight
Tony Scott's ENEMY OF THE STATE is like a very carefully constructed and reliable machine. The film skillfully assembles all the standard parts of a paranoid action thriller, puts them in exactly the right places, flicks the "on" switch, and then justs let the thing run. It has clichés out the wazoo (innocent citizen happening to witness a government-sanctioned murder, protagonist as target of a high-tech smear campaign, car chase in an underground tunnel, exploding warehouse, etc.), but this is the kind of movie that reminds us why clichés become clichés in the first place: because, when used properly, they work.
ENEMY OF THE STATE effectively blends elements of two types of thrillers: the "stolen-identity" story, in which nefarious forces use technological forgery to undermine someone's credibility and take away his financial and legal resources, and the chase movie, in which the protagonist is constantly on the run from the bad guys. That protagonist is Robert Dean (Will Smith), a labor attorney who accidentally winds up in possession of a tape documenting the murder of a Congressman. The murder had been ordered by an NSA operative named Reynolds (Jon Voight), who needed the Congressman out of the way in order to pass a bill that would legalize widespread audio and video surveillance of the American population. Eventually Dean is joined by Brill (Gene Hackman), a rogue NSA agent, as the two of them try to turn the tables on Reynolds' men.
This is the second big-budget action movie of 1998 to be produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, ARMAGEDDON being the first. ENEMY OF THE STATE is a slightly better film than ARMAGEDDON, if nothing else because the suspense depends on a cat-and-mouse routine between Dean, Brill, and Reynolds rather than on the efforts of the protagonists to combat a giant piece of CGI. The initial chase scenes are the high point of the movie, as Scott keeps the audience on the edge of their seats with quick cuts between the action itself, the hi-tech video feeds from the NSA satellites, and the hackers at NSA headquarters monitoring the situation. Screenwriter David Marconi also deserves some credit, however, for his presentation of Dean's family life, which seems to be mostly happy but not without its problems. The dialogue is nothing to write home about, but it is at least realistic and mostly devoid of the irritating clichés that populate many an action script.
Aside from a far-fetched and unnecessarily bloody ending, the major flaw in ENEMY OF THE STATE is that Scott and Bruckheimer don't recognize when they have too much of a good thing. The scenes of the NSA agents pursuing Dean with the help of various hi-tech gadgets start to grow repetitive after a while, and as a result the movie really starts to drag in the middle section until Brill shows up. While not as annoying as the endless camera-shaking in the final hour of ARMAGEDDON, these scenes still left me thinking that Bruckheimer and his directors really ought to open a dictionary and look up "restraint" some time. Fortunately, things pick up again towards the end when Dean and Brill hatch a scheme to outwit the NSA.
ENEMY OF THE STATE is the kind of movie that really makes me wish I had a **3/4 rating: it's better than any of the **1/2 films I've seen this year, but not as good as any of the other *** films. Since I saw it on Christmas Day, I've decided to be generous.
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