Enemy of the State (1998)

Director:

Tony Scott

Writer (WGA):

David Marconi (written by)

Release Date:

20 November 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

It's not paranoia if they're really after you.

Plot:

A lawyer becomes a target by a corrupt politician and his NSA goons when he accidentally receives key evidence to a serious politically motivated crime.

Plot Keywords:

Gadget | Claustrophobic | Innocence | Confrontation | Paranoid

Awards:

5 wins & 12 nominations

Cast

Will Smith	...	Robert Clayton Dean
Gene Hackman	...	Brill
Jon Voight	...	Reynolds
Lisa Bonet	...	Rachel Banks
Regina King	...	Carla Dean
Stuart Wilson	...	Congressman Albert
Laura Cayouette	...	Christa Hawkins
Loren Dean	...	Hicks
Barry Pepper	...	Pratt
Ian Hart	...	Bingham
Jake Busey	...	Krug
Scott Caan	...	Jones
Jason Lee	...	Zavitz
Gabriel Byrne	...	Brill
James LeGros	...	Jerry Miller (as James Le Gros)

MPAA:

Rated R for language and violence.

Runtime:

132 min | USA:140 min (extended version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

South Korea:15 | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:14A (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba) | Philippines:PG-13 | Netherlands:12 (re-rating) | Argentina:13 | Canada:AA (Ontario) (original rating) | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Iceland:16 (video rating) | Canada:14A (Ontario) (video rating) | Netherlands:16 (video rating) | USA:R (certificate #36342) | Iceland:14 (original rating) | Australia:M | Finland:K-12 | France:U | Germany:12 (w) | Hong Kong:IIB | Italy:T | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:NC-16 | Spain:13 | Sweden:11 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Company:

Touchstone Pictures

Trivia:

The satellites repeatedly send "CQ" in Morse code every time they're seen. "CQ" is ham radio shorthand for "Anybody out there want to chat?" ("Seek you.")

Goofs:

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Dean and Brill enter the "jar" in Brill's home, they close the outer cage door with the cat outside it. But they don't close it tight, and the cat is seen forcing her way in, so when the cat is seen later, it's not unexpected.

Quotes:

[last lines]
Larry King: You've got no right to come into my home.

Movie Connections:

References James and the Giant Peach (1996)

Soundtrack:

6 Underground

I like this one, also beeing somewhat realistic (not in every detail of course).

Well, I like this one. I like the cast, the visuals are well done, but what is more important is the plot that I like really much. It's not the most sophisticated plot of all times, but I think it's quite good, and to some degree, realistic. Of course it's not possible to move sattelites that quickly, or zoom in on a videotape that much and still have crystal-clear visual, but quite some technology seen is realistic today, or in the near future. This is an hollywood flick, all right, so they have quite much action and everything looks very easy, steering a sattelite seems to be no harder than playing a video game, what makes it all seem a bit unrealistic/sci-fi-like, but today's technical posibilities are quite large, and continue to grow, so informing oneself about the issue (I mean the real world issue) is not a bad idea.

To give you some points to think:

- It's routine for the credid card companies to document every transaction made with the cards, go figure who gets the docs if police is investigating.

- Every call / fax done is documented for billing, go figure, who...

- At least for your ISP it's possible to read every unencrypted email you send or receive, go figure ...

- Today there are MANY cameras in public areas in Great Britain, with numbers still growing.

- Face recognition software is already being used in combination with some surveillance cameras.

- Dictation software that can interpret your spoken word and convert it into written text is being sold to you today, maybe some organisations have much better versions at their hands ...

The list could go on, but what I want to say is that one should think about the posibilities and listen to what the politicians say, and what they want to allow the federal organisations.

You want to be able to still _enjoy_ the movie in some years time, not thinking of it as being somewhat normal just as everyday life, all right?