Enemies of the State (2020) User Reviews

Mixed messages

[pootypootwell · 6/10 · 2 November 2021]

This is a difficult review to write, which makes sense, because it was a difficult film to watch! It was only my stubbornness that kept me watching until the end. And it's a good thing I did, because everything flipped.

I grew more and more angry as the first half unfolded. All I could think was "How can so many people be hornswoggled by this horse*&^!?" But keep with it. At the end, if you are a critical thinker and a pragmatist, you'll know who was lying, who was initially fooled but owned up to it, and who was telling the truth all along.

A search for the truth

[mbrcf · 7/10 · 15 September 2020]

TIFF 2020 01

Enemies of the State

The truth is never pure and rarely simple- Oscar Wilde This documentary film was about the case of Matt Dehart and his family against multiple accusations he faced such as child pornography, national security charges and dark-web allegations. This film, I believe, started as a passionate and zealous search for the truth about Matt's case through almost 15 years and the result is that in today's world, the truth is not a definite, absolute, certain object we can achieve, but rather a complex, between the webs of lies set of stories, manipulated facts with various groups interests integrated and intervened to try to shape and form them benefitting those interests. The film feels more like a story of an investigation with great use of cinematic techniques not unlike those of previous Errol Morris works, who also produced this documentary. It's a thought-provoking, intelligent film with lots to offer.

Interesting but bloated

[bczech-46-485595 · 7/10 · 26 January 2022]

The documentary was overall interesting but heavily laden with actor recreating scenes that were wholly unneeded. In an age where everything is a conspiracy and there are 'heroes' everywhere against a 'shadowy government' this is an interesting look at someone who made such claims to distract from what the government was really trying to charge and prosecute. Beside the dramatic recreations the lack of an interview with the main subject is really to the detriment of the overall documentary. Over produced, over long, could have been edited down to an hour or an hour and a quarter and it may have been bumped up the rating.

Long windy trail of bs

[symmetrymis · 4/10 · 1 April 2022]

Just a bizarre hours long journey of crazy from a delusional family that dove into wild conspiracy to not face reality.

Honestly incredible this guys parents are as insane or maybe more than he is. If you want to watch a family deal with their own conspiracies in a circular firing squad manor that ropes in multiple hangers on for publicity this is the doc for you.

Classic movie of bad parenting and enablers

[thesanger-75085 · 1/10 · 20 May 2022]

This is a cautionary tale of how not to enable bad behavior. These parents love to play victims and everything their son does is perfect. The son was flawed and you failed to help him.

Forget about Matt DeHart; this film is about facts, spin, and disinformation

[Binba · 9/10 · 10 January 2022]

What happened with the reviews here? I was almost shocked by the reviews as I was by some parts of the film... Are people so used to be fed "the truth" with a spoon, that they get angry in the face of ambivalence? Because this was exactly what this film dealt with.

Other reviewers here seem to have panned the film because its subject may be a "bad guy". You know you're rating the movie, not Matt DeHart, right?

Enemies of the State deals with half-truths, spins, perspectives, the dearth of information and what we as the public make of it all. It deals with it in a subtle way and yes, starting with one perspective and gradually revealing more, while all along the way reminding the viewer that the facts are few, and to be suspicious.

By the time it's over, I hope you have made up your mind. This case may be clear by the film's end, but when it comes to other controversies in the news, who do we root for, and who do we vilify?

Unsatisfying Documentary

[TheTruthofItIs · 4/10 · 12 August 2021]

Director Sonia Kennebeck did a pretty decent job with 2017's "National Bird" and this examination of Matt DeHart was proceeding pretty well till the end, with no discernible conclusion to his story. It's like she just gave up before informing us of his current circumstances. He got released from prison in Oct 3rd 2019 and he missed an interview with her on the 12th and no more about him, but she could get something from doing basic investigatory reporting, where he's working, schooling, traveling, etc. You'll feel cheated in the end.

Very clearly a pedophile

[willybug-82336 · 2/10 · 8 December 2021]

I got halfway through this horrible, horrible documentary. There was tons of evidence that he was a pedophile and absolutely nothing that said he was a hacker being attacked by the fbi. This documentary really does a lot to try to humanize him, like showing him as a child in a choir, but 5 minutes of watching the child sex crimes division of the fbi talking about him is pretty sobering. The very premise of this documentary is pretty much made up and unbelievable, why was this made?

Terrible, waste of time, do the crime do the time

[imdb-23821 · 3/10 · 31 October 2021]

Very poor documentary, filled with eerie music, transitions, rambling monologues to fill time. You could fit all the information into maybe 20 minutes. Lots of chat about how he didn't get caught by people who keep protesting, not wanting to cooperate because they know full well what Matt DeHart was capable of doing and not the depressed church going young man. Was not convinced by the body language of DeHart and even less by the family members and those defending DeHart. Should have been a short film. But, like most crimes, hard to find the smoking gun but lots of evidence to show who likely used it to a low degree of doubt.

What would you do?

[avindugunasinghe · 10/10 · 9 August 2021]

People can have many perspectives until the problem becomes their own. From that point on reactions take identical approaches. So we can't judge the entrapped.

Who is strong enough to stand against the colossus of states. Should we question? Is keeping secrets truly the loyalty? Isn't revelations of truth a way to express true strength and greatness of a nation?

This is not a regular one-sided documentary but rather a spectacle of colliding theories and information chess game between govt and DeHart family.

Justice is a inevitable either by law or nature.

What a waste

[thairpygrl1 · 1/10 · 30 October 2021]

There's several wasted things about this. Viewers time have been wasted. My brain cells were wasted trying to understand this movie. It jumps around, very hard to follow. I believe in conspiracies but this was pretty evident off the bat that Matt was guilty and trying to deflect. You want to feel bad for his parents but I just couldn't. I can't believe E Morris was attached to this project.

No conclusion to the stupid movie

[churchill-58337 · 2/10 · 18 August 2021]

I meant what I said long drawn-out movie with no real ending.

What happened?

[thejdrage · 3/10 · 1 November 2021]

Seriously. What did I just spend my time watching? This had all the makings of a great documentary and it absolutely fell apart ..... well, I'm not sure when it fell apart, that's how skillful it was. All I know is, at some some point, I woke up (intellectually) and wondered, "WTF did I just watch?!"

Kudos to Sonia kinbeck

[knight996 · 8/10 · 2 September 2021]

This is honestly how's news should be done. CNN Fox News MSNBC they need you! Presented both sides of the story no spin!

Hard to follow due to a ton of loud background music

[atank81 · 2/10 · 5 April 2022]

I'm trying to watch this, and to a degree it is interesting. However the overlay music is very loud. I'm 25 minutes in and have had to adjust the volume several times just because the music and sound effects are overwhelming. Then you can't hear what people are saying. Very frustrating.

Interesting

[patrociniosalas · 8/10 · 11 July 2022]

Very crazy story of consipracy to cover another crime. Or was it? Very open to interpretation of what happened. The presentation was pretty good. Nice reinactments using original audio. Overall a good documentary.

Their Lawyers Were Correct !!!

[JoeKulik · 8/10 · 21 October 2022]

I think that it's entirely possible that all the "evidence" against Matt was fabricated by the Govt just to step on him hard as a potential whistle blower. However, Matt's parents went completely off the rails when they chose to pursue the National Security angle over the $ex Charges against him. What turned off both Nashville lawyers is that they wanted to directly focus on the Fed Charges at hand, while the parents were trying to make an end run around them.

Had the parents allowed those lawyers to do their job, they may have uncovered that all the "evidence" against Matt was fabricated by analyzing the relevant metadata and Internet transmission logs. The father suggested at some point that such metadata analysis was possible, yet their Grandiose National Security Plan failed and Matt was left with not enough time to do such basic homework and ended up in prison.

I am in NO Way saying that the Fed Govt fabricated all that "evidence". I'm only saying that the opportunity to actually prove that was lost with the parents' wrong headed strategy and their obedient son's willingness to go along.

It's For Your Own Good

[westsideschl · 8/10 · 10 May 2022]

WikiLeaks, 2013, Anonymous posting on a server called The Shell on Tor Network (Deep or Dark Web) ran by Matt (Mathew DeHart). Family applied to Canada in 2014 for asylum. Another example of politicians & government departments not really wanting the population to fully understand what & why we do certain things all in the vague catch-all phrase "National Interest".