Enemy of the State

December 11, 2004

Rated: R Runtime: 142 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

DVD Quick Take

Will Smith is Robert Clayton Dean, a labor attorney in the D.C. area who runs afoul of the mob. If that wasn’t bad enough, through an unfortunate circumstance he comes under the suspicion of the National Security Agency for having possession of an incriminating video.

Gene Hackman has a great part as Brill, a man who lives his life completely outside the scope of the federal government. He’s got a great attitude and knows how to play with some of the cool toys this movie introduces.

The movie was produced my Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Tony Scott. This dynamic duo also brought us Crimson Tide, Days of Thunder and Top Gun. Separately their list of accomplishments are too long to list here, but suffice it to say that they each know how to make a movie that any self-respecting guy wants to watch.

One word of caution though… if you are the paranoid type, this movie isn’t gonna make your day. With the breakneck pace of communications these days, its not hard to believe that a good portion of the ideas in this movie could actually be pulled off. You’ve seen the TerraServer, so you know it’s certainly plausible that the NSA could get much closer pictures than those that are publicly available. The tracking devices? Heck, you can buy some of that stuff in retail snoop shops. Cell phones? Tapping into an analog call is child’s play (digital is a bit more difficult, but plausible.) In fact, I’m having trouble thinking of anything shown in this movie that couldn’t be done…

If you’ll excuse me, I need to go load PGP on my computer now.

Posted by John | Filed Under 3 Stars, Action, DVD, Gene Hackman, R, Will Smith