Enemy of the State

Staring: Will Smith, Gene Hackman

Review by The Ranting WolfCastle

    When my friend and I decided to go to a movie, we were either going to see Very Bad Things or Enemy of the State.  We ended up seeing the later, and I must say that I (wanting to see the former) was not disappointed.   In fact I was quite the opposite.  I can't even imagine Very Bad Things being better than this film.

    Will Smith stars as Dean, a lawyer who happens to be caught up in a case opposing the Mafia.  One day while Christmas shopping, he runs into a friend from college played by Jason Lee (Chasing Amy, Mallrats) who happens to be quite erratic and nervous at the time.  What Dean doesn't know is that his friend is being chased by thugs from the NSA, because he got the murder of a politician on tape.  He also doesn't know that his friend slipped the tape into his shopping bag, so now the NSA is onto our hero.  After a brief interrogation at Dean's home, the NSA ruins his life.  He of course thinks that this is being done by the Mafia, it isn't long before Gene Hackman comes along, and tells him what's up.  Now the two together have to thwart the efforts of the NSA, and bring peace back to the world, or I guess, just their lives.

    The thing that really caught my eye while watching this film, were the scenes in which the NSA was monitoring Dean's conversations.  Tony Scott did a very good job of not boring us with the traditional way of shooting these types of scenes.  What he does, is switch back and forth from the conversation to the NSA guys running the equipment back at headquarters.  It's pretty cool.  Also one of the NSA guys is played by Wiley.  That's not his real name, but that's how I know him.   He played Dr. Evil's son in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, and the reason I call him Wiley is because of the first role I saw him in, Airborne, it's a cheesy rollerblading movie, but I think it should be a cult classic or something.   Check it out. 

    Now, back to the actual movie I'm reviewing...I didn't dislike anything about the film, except for maybe the running time, which is close to two hours.   It wasn't that I was checking my watch, it's just that we didn't start the film until ten, so we were at the theatre past midnight.  And you do notice slightly that it is a long movie, nothing major though.

    I also realized during this movie that Gene Hackman is a great actor.  He's a baddass in this movie, even though the previews tend to make him look a little bit neurotic, he's actually pretty level headed.  I know Will Smith is the star of the film, but it seems that anytime Hackman is on screen he takes over, (in a good way) and you kind of don't even notice Will.  That's not to say that they don't have good interaction, they do, all I'm saying is Gene Hackman is a undeniable baddass.   Will Smith is also good, but it seems to me that he always plays the same character in movies.  I do know that he can break the type cast, because I saw him in Six Degrees of Separation where he plays a gay man.  It's just mind boggling to me that one of the biggest new action stars today started out singing "Parents Just Don't Understand" with a guy named D.J. Jazzy Jeff.  How does that happen?

    The ending of this film is also very clever.  You have no idea how it's going to end, and I'm not going to give anything away, but I liked it a lot.

    So, in this up and coming breed of conspiracy theory type movies, where technology proves to be very dangerous, Enemy of the State stands alone.   The Net was good, and I heard Conspiracy Theory sucked.  So Enemy of the State is a film you should see.

80%