Enemy of the State (1998)

Directed by Tony Scott. Starring Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Regina King, Loren Dean, Lisa Bonet, Barry Pepper, Jack Black, Scott Caan, Jake Busey, Seth Green, Ian Hart, Jamie Kennedy, Bodhi Elfman, Tom Sizemore, Jason Lee, Gabriel Byrne, Stuart Wilson, Anna Gunn, Jascha Washington, Jason Robards, Philip Baker Hall. [R]

A video recording of one of NSA chief Voight’s stooges murdering a congressman ends up in the possession of a DC lawyer (Smith), whose life becomes a living hell as surveillance squads and agency operatives track his every move. A breathlessly paced high-tech thriller that tries to use headlong momentum and urgent editing to cover up a surplus of plot holes. Released when many Americans still clung to an analog world, it probably seemed cutting edge at the time, but was soon after revealed to be laughably naïve and juvenile; sure, it talks a fancy game of topical horrors (loss of privacy, civil liberties, etc.), but sheer implausibility frustrates at almost every turn. Although Smith (gratefully) never turns into a full-fledged action hero, that doesn’t stop him from the occasional superheroic deed, and his effortless charisma gets rerouted into unconvincing displays of panic and outrage. Hackman fares better as a paranoid ex-analyst, cut from the same cloth as Harry Caul and living off the grid in an abandoned warehouse. Empty visceral thrills keep it marginally watchable, but considering that uncredited rewrites from Tony Gilroy and Aaron Sorkin (among others) couldn’t solve the myriad script problems, they probably should have just started over and simplified. Robards went unbilled for his small role as the murdered congressman.

52/100