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Enemy of the State


Robert Dean played by Will Smith has a perfect life. A gorgeous wife, a beautiful home, a wonderful son and a blender. He is a highly educated lawyer working with a top New York firm and seems to have it all. One day though whilst shopping for a Christmas present for his wife he runs into someone he knew from college and his life starts unravelling very quickly.

Back in 1998 national security was still very much a thing that was clearly worried about the world of especially in the united states, the internet was still young and not many knew a lot about it so much so it is barely even touched on and everything is very much future high tech with bugs etc.

The first thing to say is this has a wonderful cast, as well as the aforementioned Will Smith you had Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Gabriel Byrne, Jack Black, Jason Lee and some very good up and coming talent in Scott Caan, Jake Busey, Jamie Kennedy and Seth Green. I love all of these actors and have got a lot of time for all of them, they were each very good in their own way and in their own roles.

The story is not a complicated one as such but it is very solid, it plays very well as I said before into the paranoid and worried elements of "are you being watched and why?" which is still relevant today but the script is really what makes this film fantastic. I am not a huge fan of Tony Scott's work and I am not going to say I am simply because he has passed away but I really think this is good. It is very clever and when it does high octane explosives they have purpose and reason for being.

Some of the plot points are a little out there, some of the technology for example makes me think "that just didn't exist" or "it wouldn't work like that" but for the most part that simply didn't matter to me. I thought this was a very solid film and worthy of my rating below.

My rating: 8.5/10