# Enemy of the State (1998)

### reviewed by
Homer Yen

    Non-threatening `Enemy of the State'
    by Homer Yen
    (c) 1998

I have a friend who works for the NSA, a pseudo-government agency that, from the looks of this film, has the ability to shadow your life without you ever really knowing it. Whenever I ask him what he does there, he can only reply, `pretty cool stuff.' I guess that if he actually did any of the things that was depicted in the film, it would be ‘classified' as pretty cool. Apparently, they can hear your cellular phone conversations, access your bank statements, and put you under the watchful eyes of hidden cameras 24 hours a day. Privacy no longer exists if the NSA enters your life. As the watchdog for our beloved citizens, their powers could get pretty scary if they had more authority to initiate wire taps and other methods of surveillance. And that's what Director Reynolds (Jon Voight) seems to want. To promote his ‘the-NSA-must-know-all' philosophy, he will use every means possible, including the execution of a key congressman and any other ‘enemy' that stands in his way.

Unbeknownst to Robert Dean (Will Smith), he has been labeled an enemy when sensitive information is passed on to him. He doesn't even know that he possesses this information, but soon becomes the target of a massive manhunt. Hiding is virtually impossible. They bug his house and make use of an eye-popping number of surveillance equipment, while a platoon of agents discretely follow the lawyer wherever he goes. Steps are taken to discredit him by manipulating the media. They also make it difficult for him to escape by, among other things, canceling all of his credit cards.

Why is everyone chasing him? What secrets does he possess which causes the NSA to invade his life? He meets up Brill (Gene Hackman), an unlikely ally with an enigmatic background. He is a former NSA operative and can help Dean stay ahead of them as well as help him find the answers to his questions.

While "Enemy" is more-or-less suspenseful and showy, if you strip away the techno-babble and the Morse code-like sound effects whenever satellites are being repositioned, you basically have a conventional manhunt. Will Smith is reliably affable as a man looking for answers, who has to rely on help from questionable sources as well as enjoy a little bit of luck. And I enjoyed Hackman as the bitter recluse who understood all too well about how the government stealthfully lives among us. But consider this film more of a message rather than a high octane vehicle that pushes its way from one scene to another. How much of our own constitutional freedoms are individuals willing to give up for the sake of national security? Maybe the State is its own worst enemy.

    Grade: B-

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