Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

merelyaninnuendo Enemy Of The StateThe vulnerability and the intense drama sequences are score on high pitches that speaks to the audience where even its amazing background score too factors in. David Marconi's screenplay is the real gem that bridges between the fiction and practicality in here. The execution by the director Tony Scott fails to justify the script where neither d.o.p. nor editing works on its favor. Will Smith is genuinely good in his portrayal and is supported with a great cast like Jon Voight and Gene Hackman. Enemy Of The State lacks a fresh concept or perspective, but the gripping screenplay and stellar performance is enough to hold the audience for its more than 2 hours of runtime.

popnruss This is one terrific film that sends a very strong message. It speaks volumes of just how dangerously close we are now to "never being alone." Will Smith is always fun to watch and he doesn't disappoint in this film. Jon Voight is terrific as the megalomaniac leading a goon squad that makes Tony Soprano's crew look like the Seven Dwarfs. Gene Hackman is always good no matter which role he's in. The action is non-stop, to say the least, never a dull moment. Really enjoyed this one!

ashleybrownmedia It's hard to believe that this film is eighteen years old! While technology has moved on a tad, paranoia of being watched & listened to by the government is still just as prevalent as it was then.In this conspiracy thriller Will Smith plays a high flying lawyer who unwittingly becomes the recipient of a tape which documents the murder of a politician by some FBI members.What follows is a cat-and-mouse chase - the kind of story that we've seen many a time before. Smith teams up with ex spook Gene Hackman and tries to turn the tables on his pursuers.Some of the dialogue, particularly in the first quarter of the film, is a little on the nose - I'd gone into this expecting an intelligent thriller (which I guess it is in many ways) and this put me off a bit. But I prevailed, and things seemed to get better. There's a good ensemble cast when it comes to the bad guys - Jon Voight, Seth Green, Jack Black, the sniper from Saving Private Ryan and Ace from Starship Troopers! However, as nice as it was to see these actors on screen, they interacted like juveniles at times, and while I'm no Andy McNab, I can't imagine that covert operatives would talk like fratboys pulling an all-nighter in the library the night before an essay is due in.Also, when they chase a witness to the murder near the start of the film they are unbelievably blatant about it and cause havoc across a big city. How their faces didn't end up on the news or at least spotted by a lot of the general public I do not know. This scene should have been so much slicker - there are about six of them and they can't catch a guy on a bicycle! As sheer luck (for them) would have it he ends up being squashed by a fire engine.Hackman is good in this, although when he met up with Smith I was worried it might turn into one of those tired-out 'mismatched duo on the run' films - but the interplay between the two was good, a personal highlight for me.There's a good use of aerial shots here, which adds to that whole 'everyone is watching you' feel - and for me worked very well.I also wasn't keen on the way Smith's wife was portrayed, she's supposed to be a barrister (or so I thought) but behaves like a grumpy teenage girl and is more worried about the underwear he bought her for Christmas than the fact his life is in danger. All in all, this whirrs along at a nice pace and keeps you going until the end - but, ultimately it's nothing we haven't seen before and suffers from poor dialogue in patches.

breakdownthatfilm-blogspot-com For certain aspects in life, there are specific things the average person has no control of. How other individuals interact with each other, how well a piece of operating equipment works or how technology advances itself forward are just a couple of examples. In the current world of today where computers are basically apart of everyone's lives, it's not that difficult for someone to find information on another person. All anyone has to do is go to any search engine whether it be Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask etc. and they'll at least get 2 to 3 webpages about or are connected to them in some way. It's the scary truth, being on the internet is not always the safest place to be. Looking back on Enemy of the State (1998) it seems that director Tony Scott and writer David Marconi have produced a piece of cinema that is an underrated gem that feels more significant now than it ever was the year it was released.The story is about an attorney/family man Robert Dean (Will Smith) being unknowingly jammed into a big government conspiracy about a rouge senator Thomas Reynolds (Jon Voight) wanting to pass a bill that'll begin invading the privacy of the US residents. What Dean has that he doesn't know about is a videotape that a suspect hid in his bag that had visual evidence that Reynolds is behind the killing of congressman Hammersley (Jason Robards) who supported individual privacy. The idea of homeland security has always been a controversial topic since the concept was ever brought to fruition and using that as an undercurrent for the script's plot was a thought provoking move on Marconi's part. As stated before with technology being a much bigger proprietor for internet access, the ability to be researched is a lot easier than it was displayed in this movie. Dean ends up being hacked from all directions - his house & mobile phone, home and satellite. Now there's that, the internet, social media and a slew of other devices that make it easy to track someone.Another part about the writing that is effective is how many times Marconi will keep the audience guessing. Every time there's a point where progress occurs, Marconi writes in an event that creates a new roadblock and a new solution plan has to be made. It's clever because most scripts are cut and dry with either one or (maybe) two remedies to a problem. This at least has three or four and its uncommon, which is good because it keeps the viewers guessing. The only component to the writing that doesn't make sense is how a supporting character was able to figure out where the FBI was located. Isn't the FBI supposed to be covert in their operations? It's a little weird that their main office doesn't seem to feel so secret. Other than that, almost every step of execution to this story is woven in such a way that'll have the viewer on the edge of their seat.The acting is well done too. Will Smith as Robert Dean plays his character differently compared to other past roles. Throughout the majority of the running time Smith plays his character like an average family man; humble, respectful, caring and not cocky. Occasionally a small bit of the old-school Will Smith humor arises from the cracks but for the situation he's put into, sarcasm sometimes feels like it was needed. Tagging along side later on is Gene Hackman as Edward Lyle, an ex-NSA agent who knows the inner workings of the system and provides some frightening insight to how things run inside the government. With Hackman being a lot older, he plays it up as a grumpy man when he's hungry and although he's not the nicest sounding, he does care at certain instances. Behind these two are a ton of other cast members consisting of Jason Lee, Scott Caan, Jake Busey, Stuart Wilson, Regina King, Lisa Bonet, Gabriel Byrne, Jack Black, Jamie Kennedy, Larry King, Tom Sizemore and even Seth Green.The cinematography provided by Daniel Mindel had a interesting look to it as well. Since this film involves surveillance of various individuals, the camera will have numerous angles to sit at. That means being hidden cameras in various objects, or among the buildings and street property. Then there's also the satellite tracking cameras that usually fly straight down to the location that's being focused on and then watching what's going on from a bird's eye view. Now obviously, the flying down from space to earth is CGI but after that it looks very real. Mindel later worked on other big budget films like Mission: Impossible III (2006), Star Trek (2009), its sequel and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). The music composed by Trevor Rabin and Harry Gregson-Williams appropriately has the right mix of synthetic and organic sounding orchestra. There are also two main themes, one for the film and another for Hackman's character. They are not that memorable but they do show up more than once and that's good. The action cues aren't as well developed but they do elevate the experience.Besides one plot hole being a bit too noticeable, the rest of the film is fine. The large cast of actors are effective in their roles, the cinematography carries lots of bird's eye view shots, the music is appropriate and the writing has smart context in its narrative.