Enemy of the State
Touchtone, 1998
Directed by Tony Scott

$$$

Ever since the end of the Cold War, Hollywood has been searching for new villains. For a while, terrorists and drug dealers were front runners. But it seems the newest candidate to fill the villain void is the computer. Several recent films have tried to scare us with nightmare scenarios about technology run amuck. Enemy of the State is one of the better ones.

Director Tony Scott has given us an effective, paranoid thriller. It's a cautionary tale about the dangers of allowing computers to control so many aspects of our daily lives. But the movie isn't warning us about a day that's in the not-too-distant future; no, the movie says that that day is here -- and it's been here for the last 20 years. And that's the scary part. In exchange for convenience, we've sacrificed our privacy. Who we talk to on the phone, what movies we rent -- the information is all being recorded on some main frame somewhere. You'll think twice about using an ATM or a cell phone after seeing this movie. The film is part of a new genre: call it, techno horror.

The victim of this information superhighway hit-and-run is Washington, D.C. labor lawyer, Bobby Dean (Will Smith). He's Christmas shopping one day when an old college acquaintance (Chasing Amy's Jason Lee) literally runs into him. He's carrying a videodisc that contains evidence of a murder and a government cover-up and the disc is slid into one of Bobby's packages without his knowledge. Before you know it, Bobby's being pursued by a slimy National Security Agency official (Jon Voight) and his band of cyber-geek henchmen. They turn his life upside down, using high-tech surveillance to discredit Bobby with his employers and even his own family. Things are looking bad until he gets help from a surveillance expert of his own, played by Gene Hackman.

The pairing of Hackman and Smith actually works. The Artist Formally Known as The Fresh Prince holds his own with the Academy Award winner. Smith, apparently energized by such weighty co-stars as Hackman and Voight gives one of his better performances. Hackman, for his part, essentially reprises his role from Francis Coppola's brilliant 1974 film The Conversation; it's a fun touch film buffs will appreciate.

Scott directs in his usual style of cutting between close-ups rather than using master shots (he maintains continuity by shooting with several cameras simultaneously -- a break from normal practice) and like every Scott film, all the characters seem to work in really dark offices. But Scott also does a good job of constantly changing our perspective -- from a close-up to a wide angle to a spy-satellite view -- giving us the paranoid feeling that a million different eyes are watching every moment that unfolds.

Copyright 1998