Thanks to the media establishment that overwhelmingly favours one side in this year's US presidential contest, most of the world firmly believes that USA has stopped being the beacon of world's liberty and is now transforming into Orwellian police-state. All those disturbing developments are, of course, attributed almost exclusively to a man who is currently holding office in White House. However, there are Hollywood films that can remind us that the trends associated with the phrase "surveillance society" existed even during Clinton's Golden Age. One of those films is Enemy of the State, 1998 thriller directed by Tony Scott.
The plot begins when Republican Congressman Phillip Hammersley (played by Jason Robards) states that he can't support new bill giving broad new powers of surveillance to NSA. Thomas Reynolds (played by Jon Voight), one of America's spy agency's bosses, expresses his displeasure with such decision by having Congressman assassinated. All that is of little concern to Robert Clayton Dean (played by Will Smith), successful Washington lawyer specialised in labour disputes. However, Zavitz (played by Jason Lee), environmentalist and Dean's friend from college days, has accidentally taped the murder and had it sent to Dean before becoming another victim of NSA assassins. The lawyer is blissfully unaware of the tape but he quickly becomes target of vicious intimidation campaign - NSA, using the latest surveillance technology, makes a mess of his life by cancelling his credit cards and spreading all kinds of vicious rumours. The only one willing to help Dean is Brill (played by Gene Hackman), old surveillance expert who spent nearly two decades in hiding from his former government employers.
Enemy of the State was produced by Jerry Bruckheimmer whose name is usually associated with loud and mindless action spectacles. Therefore, it was tempting to brand Enemy of the State as just another Hollywood "high concept" film that trivialises serious issue, in this case the eternal dilemma between public security and private liberty. At first glance, it seems that this film could be reduced nothing more than the series of chases and fights. However, Tony Scott, who usually tends to concentrate of those scenes at the expense of everything else, was obviously attracted to the possibility to show potentials of modern surveillance technology in a new way. Ability of American government to monitor and control the lives of its citizens is displayed in the series awesome images that tell rather disturbing story. They also underline the point made by scriptwriter David Marconi in the pauses between action scenes – modern surveillance technology is a formidable tool that can protect the public, but it also can be extremely dangerous in the hands of ruthless individuals embodied by the character of Reynolds.
Those more familiar with American politics and history can notice few amusing little details. Hollywood, for example, again shows its pro-Democratic bias by motivating Republican congressman's pro-liberty stance with the desire to score political points rather than principle. This shows that Hollywood only few years ago had more subtlety in the display of its political preferences than now. Character of Reynolds is made to look very much like Robert McNamarra, US Defence secretary infamous both for his bureaucratic arrogance and role in the Vietnam War debacle. Of course, just like all Hollywood thrillers whose villains are on government's payroll, Enemy of the State unconvincingly puts the whole blame for the abuse of power on "few rotten eggs", in this case a single bureaucrat, rather than the system itself.
Most of the audiences would, of course, care little about filmmakers' politics. For them Enemy of the State is nothing more than an entertaining two hours of non-stop action. Will Smith, who, at first glance, looked too charismatic for the role, is surprisingly convincing in the Hitchcockian role of ordinary man in extraordinary situation. Additional amusement in this film comes from homage being made to Hollywood classics. For example, a valid case could be made that character of Brill is the same character who was the protagonist of Coppola's The Conversation. At the end of the film Tony Scott pays little homage to himself by making a parody version of surreal gunfight that marked the end of his own True Romance.
Although far from being a genre classic, Enemy of the State deserves recommendation because it satisfies needs of those who crave for quality entertainment as much as the needs of those who like some food for thought.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on October 8th 2004)
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