ENEMY OF THE STATE

Will Smith (INDEPENDENCE DAY and MEN IN BLACK) tries to solidify his superstar status with the new movie by TOP GUN director Tony Scott, ENEMY OF THE STATE. Smith, however, is one of the least interesting aspects to this fairly exciting but predictable thriller, which has an over-abundance of foul language that barely makes it suitable for even the most mature teenagers or adults.

Smith plays a high-powered labor lawyer named Robert Clayton Dean who has a videotape exposing some organized crime connections to a union. Although the portrayal of Dean as a fancy professional lawyer is not convincing, the audience may not care because he is immediately thrust into a plot involving national intrigue. A chance encounter with an old friend finds Dean unknowingly in the possession of a video of a murder. The video shows a corrupt, well-known State Department bureaucrat, played by Jon Voight, standing by while one of his aides knocks out a United States Senator who turns up a drowning victim. In a familiar plot device, Dean’s friend plants the video into Dean’s shopping bag just minutes before the friend dies in a traffic accident while being chased.

To cover his tracks, the bureaucrat uses operatives in the National Security Administration to run an alleged “training exercise.” Their mission: bug Dean and his family, ruin his credit, give false information to his employer, create doubt in his marriage, and plant misinformation about Dean’s professional career. Eventually, the bureaucrat’s team frames Dean for murder (a move that doesn’t make sense, especially considering the fact that the whole thing was set up originally as a mere “training” exercise). Dean’s only hope out of this mess is a man he has never met until now, a mysterious underground information broker and ex-spy known only as Brill, played by Gene Hackman. An elaborate series of chase scenes ensues, leading to a clever climax that, regrettably, ends in a conventional shootout.

The plot involving Hackman’s character propels the second half of ENEMY OF THE STATE beyond the average action thriller. It perhaps would have been even more interesting if Smith’s character had stronger ties to Hackman’s Brill, like a protégé would have had. It is also hard to relate to Smith’s high-powered lawyer, who seems a little too dumb and superficial for someone involved in the complex world of labor law. Smith appears too young to have such an important job, anyway, and seems more like the trainees that Jon Voight’s scheming bureaucrat uses. Smith is also not convincing as a typical middle-class family man.

That being said, it was still lots of fun watching Hackman’s character shepherd Smith’s Dean through the harsh, confusing world of government surveillance and eavesdropping. It was also lots of fun watching Smith’s Dean finally wise up and come up with a clever solution to his character’s situation.

ENEMY OF THE STATE is your basic tale of good and evil. It sends appropriate warnings about the dangers of domestic government surveillance. There is nothing particularly religious about the movie, beyond the idea that you better watch out what you do in public and in private, because Someone is watching you!