Get Our Extension

Enemy of the State (film)

From Wikipedia, in a visual modern way
Enemy of the State
Enemy of the State (film) poster art.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byTony Scott
Written byDavid Marconi
Produced byJerry Bruckheimer
Starring
CinematographyDan Mindel
Edited byChris Lebenzon
Music by
Production
companies
Distributed byBuena Vista Pictures Distribution
Release date
  • November 20, 1998 (1998-11-20)
Running time
132 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$90 million[1]
Box office$250.8 million[1]

Enemy of the State is a 1998 American political action thriller film directed by Tony Scott, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and written by David Marconi. The film stars Will Smith and Gene Hackman and features an ensemble supporting cast consisting of Jon Voight, Lisa Bonet, Gabriel Byrne, Dan Butler, Loren Dean, Jack Black, Jake Busey, Barry Pepper, and Regina King. The film tells the story of a group of corrupt National Security Agency (NSA) agents conspiring to kill a congressman and the cover-up that ensues after a tape of the murder ends up in the possession of an unsuspecting lawyer.

Enemy of the State was released on November 20, 1998 by Buena Vista Pictures through its Touchstone Pictures label. The film grossed $250.8 million worldwide, and garnered positive reviews from film critics, with many praising the writing and direction as well as the chemistry between Smith and Hackman.

Discover more about Enemy of the State (film) related topics

Action film

Action film

Jerry Bruckheimer

Jerry Bruckheimer

Jerome Leon Bruckheimer is an American film and television producer. He has been active in the genres of action, drama, fantasy, and science fiction.

David Marconi

David Marconi

David Marconi is an American screenwriter, film producer and film director. His writing credits include the screenplays for Enemy of the State, Live Free or Die Hard, and The Foreigner.

Gene Hackman

Gene Hackman

Eugene Allen Hackman is an American retired actor and novelist. In a career that spanned more than six decades, Hackman won two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, one Screen Actors Guild Award, two BAFTAs and one Silver Bear.

Ensemble cast

Ensemble cast

In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that is composed of multiple principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.

Jon Voight

Jon Voight

Jonathan Vincent Voight is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance as Joe Buck, a would-be gigolo, in Midnight Cowboy (1969). During the 1970s, he played a businessman mixed up with murder in Deliverance (1972); a paraplegic Vietnam veteran in Coming Home (1978), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor; and a penniless ex–boxing champion in the remake of The Champ (1979).

Lisa Bonet

Lisa Bonet

Lilakoi Moon, known professionally as Lisa Bonet, is an American actress. She portrayed Denise Huxtable on the sitcom The Cosby Show (1984–1992), for which she earned widespread acclaim and a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1986; she reprised the role of Denise in the spinoff series A Different World (1987–1993).

Gabriel Byrne

Gabriel Byrne

Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, screenwriter, audiobook narrator, and author. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined London's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish drama serial The Riordans and the spin-off show Bracken.

Dan Butler

Dan Butler

Daniel Eugene Butler is an American actor known for his role as Bob "Bulldog" Briscoe on the TV series Frasier (1993–2004); Art in Roseanne (1991–1992); for the voice of Mr. Simmons on the Nickelodeon TV show Hey Arnold (1997–2002), which was later reprised the role in Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie (2017); and films roles in Enemy of the State (1998) and Sniper 2 (2001).

Jack Black

Jack Black

Thomas Jacob Black is an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is known for his acting roles in the films High Fidelity (2000), Shallow Hal (2001), Orange County (2002), School of Rock (2003), Envy (2004), King Kong (2005), The Holiday (2006), Gulliver's Travels (2010), Bernie (2011), The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018), and the Jumanji franchise.

Jake Busey

Jake Busey

William Jacob Busey is an American actor. Among his most prominent roles have been serial killer Johnny Bartlett in 1996's The Frighteners, Ace Levy in 1997's Starship Troopers, Kyle Brenner in 2001's Tomcats, Aiden Tanner in the 2014–2016 TV series From Dusk till Dawn: The Series, and Sean H. Keyes in the Predator franchise.

Barry Pepper

Barry Pepper

Barry Robert Pepper is a Canadian actor. He played Private Daniel Jackson in Saving Private Ryan (1998), Corrections Officer Dean Stanton in The Green Mile (1999), Roger Maris in 61* (2001), Joseph L. Galloway in We Were Soldiers (2002), Sergeant Michael Strank in Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Vince in Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015) and Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018), Lucky Ned Pepper in the remake of the western True Grit (2010) and David Keller in Crawl (2019). He has been nominated for three Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Golden Globe Award. For his role as Robert F. Kennedy in the miniseries The Kennedys (2011), Pepper won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.

Plot

Senior NSA agent Thomas Reynolds meets in a public park with Congressman Phil Hammersley to discuss a new piece of counterterrorism legislation that dramatically expands the surveillance powers of American intelligence agencies over individuals and groups. Hammersley remains committed to blocking its passage, arguing that the potential benefits of the bill aren't worth sacrificing the privacy rights of ordinary citizens. Reynolds, wanting the bill passed to obtain a long-delayed promotion, has a team of agents loyal to him murder Hammersley and stage his death as a car accident following a heart attack.

Labor lawyer Robert Clayton "Bobby" Dean is working with his firm on a case involving restaurant owner and mob boss Paulie Pintero. Dean meets with his ex-girlfriend, Rachel Banks; Rachel works for "Brill," a man Dean occasionally hires to conduct surveillance operations but has never met in person. She delivers a tape incriminating Pintero for labor racketeering, which Dean threatens him with to ensure the mobster agrees to a favorable settlement.

Reynolds and his team spot a biologist swapping out a tape from a remote wildlife camera stationed across the lake from the murder scene. They identify him as Daniel Zavitz. When Zavitz views footage of the murder, he immediately contacts a journalist to publicize the tape. Reynolds' team intercepts the call and rush to Zavitz's apartment. Zavitz transfers the video to a disc and hides it in an NEC TurboExpress game console before fleeing. He bumps into Dean, his old college friend. Panicked, Zavitz slips the disc into Dean's shopping bag without his knowledge. He runs into the path of an oncoming fire truck and is killed instantly, while Reynolds has Zavitz's journalist contact murdered.

After Reynolds' team identify Dean and figure Zavitz slipped him the footage disc, they visit him disguised as cops. When Dean refuses to let them search his belongings, the agents erroneously believe that he is knowingly withholding the disc. They break in Dean's house while he and his family are out and plant bugs on his clothes and personal effects. They also disseminate false evidence that Dean is laundering money through his firm for Pintero and having an affair with Rachel. The subterfuge destroys Dean's life: he is fired from his law firm, his bank accounts are frozen pending a federal investigation, and his wife, Carla, throws him out. Dean asks Rachel to contact Brill for help. Reynolds intercepts the call and sends one of his men to impersonate Brill. The real Brill rescues Dean and warns him that the NSA is responsible for ruining his life. After Dean manages to evade the team, he is horrified to find Rachel murdered in her home to silence her and him framed for the murder.

Dean finds the disc and shows it to Brill, who identifies Reynolds. The NSA agents raid Brill's hideout; Brill and Dean escape but the disc is destroyed when Brill is forced to set off explosives. Brill reveals that he is really Edward Lyle, a former NSA communications expert stationed in Iran during the Iranian Revolution. His partner, Rachel's father, was killed, but Lyle escaped and has been working covertly ever since, employing Rachel as a courier to watch over her. Lyle urges Dean to start a new life, but he insists on clearing his name. Dean and Lyle trail Sam Albert, a key supporter of the bill, and record a videotape of him with his mistress. Dean and Lyle hide an NSA listening device in Albert's hotel room, knowing that he will find it. Lyle then hacks into Reynolds' personal bank account and deposits large sums of money to make it look like he's being paid to blackmail Albert.

A meeting is arranged with Reynolds to exchange the video so Reynolds can be tricked into incriminating himself. Reynolds' men instead ambush the meeting and hold Lyle and Dean at gunpoint, demanding the tape. Dean, anticipating this, lies and says that the evidence is hidden at Pintero's restaurant, which is currently under FBI surveillance. He then tricks Pintero and Reynolds into believing that the other man has the "tape". The encounter immediately escalates into a deadly close-quarters firefight when a gangster shoots an NSA agent in the back; Pintero, his men, Reynolds, and most of the agents are all killed. During this ordeal, Lyle sends the FBI a live feed of the incident to trigger a raid on the restaurant before slipping out in disguise. Dean is rescued, and the conspiracy is exposed.

Congress abandons the bill to avoid scandal, while the NSA executes a cover-up of Reynolds' actions. Dean is cleared of all charges and reconciles with Carla. Lyle sends Dean a "farewell" message via his TV, partially showing himself relaxing on a tropical island with his cat.

Discover more about Plot related topics

Counterterrorism

Counterterrorism

Counterterrorism, also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and intelligence agencies use to combat or eliminate terrorism. Counterterrorism strategies are a government's motivation to use the instruments of national power to defeat terrorists, the organizations they maintain, and the networks they contain.

Crime boss

Crime boss

A crime boss, also known as a crime lord, Don, gang lord, gang boss, mob boss, kingpin, godfather, crime mentor or criminal mastermind, is a person in charge of a criminal organization.

NEC

NEC

NEC Corporation is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network solutions, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of things (IoT) platform, and telecommunications equipment and software to business enterprises, communications services providers and to government agencies, and has also been the biggest PC vendor in Japan since the 1980s when it launched the PC-8000 series.

TurboExpress

TurboExpress

The TurboExpress is an 8-bit handheld game console by NEC Home Electronics, released in late 1990 in Japan and the United States, branded as the PC Engine GT in Japan and TurboExpress Handheld Entertainment System in the U.S. It is essentially a portable version of the TurboGrafx-16 home console that came two to three years earlier. Its launch price in Japan was ¥44,800 and $249.99 in the U.S.

Iran

Iran

Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan to the north, by Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east, and by the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf to the south. It covers an area of 1.64 million square kilometres, making it the 17th-largest country. Iran has an estimated population of 86.8 million, making it the 17th-most populous country in the world, and the second-largest in the Middle East. Its largest cities, in descending order, are the capital Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz, and Tabriz.

Iranian Revolution

Iranian Revolution

The Iranian Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution, refers to a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. It led to the replacement of the Imperial State of Iran by the present-day Islamic Republic of Iran, as the monarchical government of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was superseded by the theocratic government of Ruhollah Khomeini, a religious cleric who had headed one of the rebel factions. The ouster of Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, formally marked the end of Iran's historical monarchy.

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, the FBI is also a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. A leading U.S. counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigative organization, the FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes.

Cast

Discover more about Cast related topics

Gene Hackman

Gene Hackman

Eugene Allen Hackman is an American retired actor and novelist. In a career that spanned more than six decades, Hackman won two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, one Screen Actors Guild Award, two BAFTAs and one Silver Bear.

Aide-de-camp

Aide-de-camp

An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant or secretary to a person of high rank, usually a senior military, police or government officer, or to a member of a royal family or a head of state.

Jake Busey

Jake Busey

William Jacob Busey is an American actor. Among his most prominent roles have been serial killer Johnny Bartlett in 1996's The Frighteners, Ace Levy in 1997's Starship Troopers, Kyle Brenner in 2001's Tomcats, Aiden Tanner in the 2014–2016 TV series From Dusk till Dawn: The Series, and Sean H. Keyes in the Predator franchise.

Barry Pepper

Barry Pepper

Barry Robert Pepper is a Canadian actor. He played Private Daniel Jackson in Saving Private Ryan (1998), Corrections Officer Dean Stanton in The Green Mile (1999), Roger Maris in 61* (2001), Joseph L. Galloway in We Were Soldiers (2002), Sergeant Michael Strank in Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Vince in Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015) and Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018), Lucky Ned Pepper in the remake of the western True Grit (2010) and David Keller in Crawl (2019). He has been nominated for three Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Golden Globe Award. For his role as Robert F. Kennedy in the miniseries The Kennedys (2011), Pepper won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.

Jason Lee (actor)

Jason Lee (actor)

Jason Michael Lee is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, singer, photographer, and former professional skateboarder. He is known for playing Earl Hickey in the television comedy series My Name Is Earl, for which he was nominated for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy TV series in 2005 and 2006 by The Golden Globes, and Dwight Hendricks in Memphis Beat (2010–2011).

Gabriel Byrne

Gabriel Byrne

Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, screenwriter, audiobook narrator, and author. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined London's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish drama serial The Riordans and the spin-off show Bracken.

Jack Black

Jack Black

Thomas Jacob Black is an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is known for his acting roles in the films High Fidelity (2000), Shallow Hal (2001), Orange County (2002), School of Rock (2003), Envy (2004), King Kong (2005), The Holiday (2006), Gulliver's Travels (2010), Bernie (2011), The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018), and the Jumanji franchise.

Jamie Kennedy

Jamie Kennedy

James Harvey Kennedy is an American actor and comedian. He has played Randy Meeks in the Scream franchise (1996–2000) and a multitude of characters in The Jamie Kennedy Experiment (2002–2004) on The WB. His other film roles include Romeo + Juliet (1996), Bowfinger (1999), Malibu's Most Wanted (2003), Finding Bliss (2009), and Good Deeds (2012).

James LeGros

James LeGros

James Le Gros is an American actor. He was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his performance in Living in Oblivion.

Ian Hart

Ian Hart

Ian Davies, better known by his stage name Ian Hart, is an English actor. His most notable roles are Rabbit in the Channel Four drama miniseries One Summer (1983), Joe O'Reilly in the biopic Michael Collins (1996), Professor Quirrell in the fantasy film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001), Ludwig van Beethoven in the film Eroica (2003), Kester Gill in the E4 series My Mad Fat Diary (2013–2015), and Father Beocca in the BBC/Netflix series The Last Kingdom (2015–2020).

Jascha Washington

Jascha Washington

Jascha Akili Washington is an American actor and songwriter. Best known for Big Momma's House (2000), Big Momma's House 2 (2006), and Like Mike 2 (2006).

Anna Gunn

Anna Gunn

Anna Gunn is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Skyler White on the AMC drama series Breaking Bad (2008–2013), for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2013 and 2014. She has also played Jean Ward in The Practice (1997–2002), and Martha Bullock in Deadwood (2004–2006).

Production

The story is set in both Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, and most of the filming was done in Baltimore. Location shooting began on a ferry in Fell's Point. In mid-January, the company moved to Los Angeles to complete production in April 1998.[2] David Marconi spent over 2 1/2 years developing his original script at Don Simpson-Jerry Bruckheimer Films under the direction of Lucas Foster, their development executive at the time. Oliver Stone expressed early interest in directing Marconi's script, but ultimately Bruckheimer went with Tony Scott who he had a long standing relationship with because of their previous collaborations.[3] The writers Aaron Sorkin, Henry Bean and Tony Gilroy each performed an uncredited rewrite of the script.[4]

Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise were considered for the part that went to Will Smith, who took the role largely because he wanted to work with Hackman, and had previously enjoyed working with the producer Jerry Bruckheimer on Bad Boys. George Clooney was also considered for a role in the film. Sean Connery was considered for the role that went to Hackman. The film is notable for having cast several soon-to-be stars in smaller supporting roles, which casting director Victoria Thomas credited to people's interest in working with Gene Hackman.[5]

The film's crew included a technical surveillance counter-measures consultant who also had a minor role as a spy shop merchant. Hackman had previously acted in a similar thriller about spying and surveillance, The Conversation (1974). The photo in Edward Lyle's NSA file is of Hackman in The Conversation.[6]

Discover more about Production related topics

Baltimore

Baltimore

Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, the fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was designated an independent city by the Constitution of Maryland in 1851, and today it is the most populous independent city in the nation. As of 2021, the population of the Baltimore metropolitan area was estimated to be 2,838,327, making it the nation's 20th largest metropolitan area. Baltimore is located about 40 miles (64 km) north northeast of Washington, D.C., making it a principal city in the Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area (CSA), the third-largest CSA in the nation, with a 2021 estimated population of 9,946,526.

Fell's Point, Baltimore

Fell's Point, Baltimore

Fell's Point is a historic waterfront neighborhood in southeastern Baltimore, Maryland. It was established around 1763 along the north shore of the Baltimore Harbor and the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River. The area has many antique, music, and other stores, restaurants, coffee bars, a municipal markethouse with individual stalls, and over 120 pubs. Located 1.5 miles east of Baltimore's downtown central business district and the Jones Falls stream, Fells Point has a maritime past and the air of a seafaring town. It also has the greatest concentration of drinking establishments and restaurants in the city.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles

Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. Los Angeles is the largest city in the state of California, the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, and one of the world's most populous megacities. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits as of 2020, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The majority of the city proper lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending partly through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to its east. It covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km2), and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estimated 9.86 million residents as of 2022.

David Marconi

David Marconi

David Marconi is an American screenwriter, film producer and film director. His writing credits include the screenplays for Enemy of the State, Live Free or Die Hard, and The Foreigner.

Lucas Foster

Lucas Foster

Lucas Foster is an American film producer whose films include Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Man on Fire, and Equilibrium. He is also one of the co-founders of HeadcaseVR, a virtual reality company.

Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone

William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Stone won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as writer of Midnight Express (1978), and wrote the gangster film remake Scarface (1983). Stone achieved prominence as writer and director of the war drama Platoon (1986), which won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture. Platoon was the first in a trilogy of films based on the Vietnam War, in which Stone served as an infantry soldier. He continued the series with Born on the Fourth of July (1989)—for which Stone won his second Best Director Oscar—and Heaven & Earth (1993). Stone's other works include the Salvadoran Civil War-based drama Salvador (1986); the financial drama Wall Street (1987) and its sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010); the Jim Morrison biographical film The Doors (1991); the satirical black comedy crime film Natural Born Killers (1994); a trilogy of films based on the American Presidency: JFK (1991), Nixon (1995), and W. (2008); and Snowden (2016).

Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Benjamin Sorkin is an American playwright, screenwriter and film director. Born in New York City, he developed a passion for writing at an early age. As a writer for stage, television and film, Sorkin is recognized for his trademark fast-paced dialogue and extended monologues, complemented by frequent use of the storytelling technique called the "walk and talk". Sorkin has earned numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, five Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globes.

Henry Bean

Henry Bean

Henry Bean is an American screenwriter, film director, film producer, novelist, and actor.

Mel Gibson

Mel Gibson

Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson is an American actor and film director. He is best known for his action hero roles, particularly his breakout role as Max Rockatansky in the first three films of the post-apocalyptic action series Mad Max and as Martin Riggs in the buddy cop action-comedy film series Lethal Weapon.

Jerry Bruckheimer

Jerry Bruckheimer

Jerome Leon Bruckheimer is an American film and television producer. He has been active in the genres of action, drama, fantasy, and science fiction.

Bad Boys (1995 film)

Bad Boys (1995 film)

Bad Boys is a 1995 American buddy cop action film directed by Michael Bay in his feature directorial debut, and produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. The film stars Martin Lawrence and Will Smith as two Miami narcotics detectives, Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey. The film received mixed reviews from critics, was commercially successful and spawned two sequels, Bad Boys II (2003) and Bad Boys for Life (2020).

George Clooney

George Clooney

George Timothy Clooney is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, four Golden Globe Awards, and two Academy Awards; one for his acting and the other as a producer. He has been honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2015, the Honorary César in 2017, AFI Life Achievement Award in 2018, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2022.

Reception

Box office

Enemy of the State grossed $111.5 million in the United States and $139.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $250.8 million, against a production budget of $90 million.[1]

The film opened at #2, behind The Rugrats Movie, grossing $20 million over its first weekend at 2,393 theaters, averaging $8,374 per venue.[7] It made $18.1 million in its second weekend and $9.7 million in its third, finishing third place both times.[1]

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 70% based on 84 reviews, with an average rating of 6.44/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "An entertaining, topical thriller that finds director Tony Scott on solid form and Will Smith confirming his action headliner status."[8] Metacritic assigned the film a normalized score of 67 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[9] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of A− on an A+ to F scale.[10]

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times expressed enjoyment in the movie, noting how its "pizazz [overcame] occasional lapses in moment-to-moment plausibility".[11] Janet Maslin of The New York Times approved of the film's action-packed sequences, but cited how it was similar in manner to the rest of the members of "Simpson's and Bruckheimer's school of empty but sensation-packed filming.[12] In a combination of the two's views, Edvins Beitiks of the San Francisco Examiner praised many of the movie's development aspects, but criticized the overall concept that drove the film from the beginning — the efficiency of government intelligence — as unrealistic.[13] Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times felt "the climax edges perilously close to the ridiculous" but overall enjoyed the film, particularly Voight and Hackman's performances.[14]

Kim Newman considered Enemy of the State a "continuation of The Conversation", the 1974 psychological thriller that starred Hackman as a paranoid, isolated surveillance expert.[15][6]

Discover more about Reception related topics

The Rugrats Movie

The Rugrats Movie

The Rugrats Movie is a 1998 American animated comedy film based on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rugrats. It was directed by Igor Kovalyov and Norton Virgien and was written by David N. Weiss & J. David Stem. The film introduced Tommy Pickles' baby brother Dil Pickles, who appeared on the series the next year. The film features the voices of E. G. Daily, Tara Charendoff, Christine Cavanaugh, Kath Soucie, Cheryl Chase, Cree Summer, and Charlie Adler, along with guest stars David Spade, Whoopi Goldberg, Margaret Cho, Busta Rhymes, and Tim Curry. The events of the film take place between the series' fifth and sixth seasons, and is the first film to be based on a Nicktoon.

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang. Although the name "Rotten Tomatoes" connects to the practice of audiences throwing rotten tomatoes in disapproval of a poor stage performance, the original inspiration comes from a scene featuring tomatoes in the Canadian film Léolo (1992).

Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged. Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, and Julie Doyle Roberts in 1999, and is owned by Fandom, Inc. as of 2023.

CinemaScore

CinemaScore

CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data.

Kenneth Turan

Kenneth Turan

Kenneth Turan is an American retired film critic, author, and lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California. He was a film critic for the Los Angeles Times from 1991 until 2020 and was described by The Hollywood Reporter as "arguably the most widely read film critic in the town most associated with the making of movies".

Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times, abbreviated as LA Times, is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the Los Angeles suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States. The publication has won more than 40 Pulitzer Prizes. It is owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong and published by the Times Mirror Company. The newspaper's coverage has evolved more recently away from U.S. and international headlines and toward emphasizing California and especially Southern California stories.

Janet Maslin

Janet Maslin

Janet R. Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as a Times film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000, Maslin helped found the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York. She is president of its board of directors.

The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times, also referred to as the Gray Lady, is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2022 to comprise 740,000 paid print subscribers, and 8.6 million paid digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as The Daily. Founded in 1851, it is published by The New York Times Company. The Times has won 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national "newspaper of record". For print, it is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the United States. The newspaper is headquartered at The New York Times Building in Times Square, Manhattan.

San Francisco Examiner

San Francisco Examiner

The San Francisco Examiner is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert

Roger Joseph Ebert was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times said Ebert "was without question the nation's most prominent and influential film critic," and Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called him "the best-known film critic in America."

Kim Newman

Kim Newman

Kim James Newman is an English journalist, film critic and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternative fictional versions of history. He has won the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Guild Award, and the BSFA award.

The Conversation

The Conversation

The Conversation is a 1974 American mystery thriller film written, produced, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Cindy Williams, Frederic Forrest, Harrison Ford, Teri Garr, and Robert Duvall. The film revolves around a surveillance expert and the moral dilemma he faces when his recordings reveal a potential murder.

Possible television series

In October 2016, ABC announced it had green-lit a television series sequel to the film, with Bruckheimer to return as producer. The series would take place two decades after the original film, where "an elusive NSA spy is charged with leaking classified intelligence, an idealistic female attorney must partner with a hawkish FBI agent to stop a global conspiracy".[16] However, nothing ever came to fruition.

Real life

An episode of PBS' Nova titled "Spy Factory" reported that the film's portrayal of the NSA's capabilities was fiction: although the agency can intercept transmissions, connecting the dots is difficult.[17] However, in 2001, the then-NSA director Gen. Michael Hayden, who was appointed to the position during the release of the film, told CNN's Kyra Phillips that "I made the judgment that we couldn't survive with the popular impression of this agency being formed by the last Will Smith movie."[18] James Risen wrote in his 2006 book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration that Hayden "was appalled" by the film's depiction of the NSA, and sought to counter it with a PR campaign on behalf of the agency.[19]

Given the events of 9/11, the Patriot Act and Edward Snowden's revelations about the NSA's PRISM surveillance program, the film has become noteworthy for being ahead of its time regarding issues of national security and privacy.[20]

In June 2013, the NSA's PRISM and Boundless Informant programs for domestic and international surveillance were uncovered by The Guardian and The Washington Post as the result of information provided by the whistleblower Edward Snowden. This information revealed capabilities such as collection of Internet browsing, e-mail and telephone data of not only many Americans, but citizens of other nations as well. The Guardian's John Patterson argued that Hollywood depictions of NSA surveillance, including Enemy of the State and Echelon Conspiracy, had "softened" up the American public to "the notion that our spending habits, our location, our every movement and conversation, are visible to others whose motives we cannot know".[21]

Discover more about Real life related topics

Michael Hayden (general)

Michael Hayden (general)

Michael Vincent Hayden is a retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the National Security Agency, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Hayden currently co-chairs the Bipartisan Policy Center's Electric Grid Cyber Security Initiative. In 2017, Hayden became a national security analyst for CNN.

CNN

CNN

CNN is a multinational news channel and website headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the Manhattan-based media conglomerate Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), CNN was the first television channel to provide 24-hour news coverage and the first all-news television channel in the United States.

Kyra Phillips

Kyra Phillips

Kyra Phillips is a correspondent for ABC News.

James Risen

James Risen

James Risen is an American journalist for The Intercept. He previously worked for The New York Times and before that for Los Angeles Times. He has written or co-written many articles concerning U.S. government activities and is the author or co-author of two books about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a book about the American public debate about abortion. Risen is a Pulitzer Prize winner.

State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration

State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration

State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration is documentary review written by Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist for The New York Times James Risen. The book was released on January 3, 2006.

September 11 attacks

September 11 attacks

The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by the militant Islamist extremist network al-Qaeda against the United States on September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners scheduled to travel from the East Coast to California. The hijackers crashed the first two planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the third into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia near Washington, D.C. The fourth plane was similarly intended to hit a federal government building in D.C., but crashed in a field following a passenger revolt. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and instigated the global war on terror.

Patriot Act

Patriot Act

The USA PATRIOT Act was a landmark Act of the United States Congress, signed into law by President George W. Bush. The formal name of the statute is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001, and the commonly used short name is a contrived acronym that is embedded in the name set forth in the statute.

Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden

Edward Joseph Snowden is an American former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, for ethical reasons, when he was an employee and subcontractor. His disclosures revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many run by the NSA and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments and prompted a cultural discussion about national security and individual privacy.

Boundless Informant

Boundless Informant

Boundless Informant is a big data analysis and data visualization tool used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA). It gives NSA managers summaries of the NSA's worldwide data collection activities by counting metadata. The existence of this tool was disclosed by documents leaked by Edward Snowden, who worked at the NSA for the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Those disclosed documents were in a direct contradiction to the NSA's assurance to United States Congress that it does not collect any type of data on millions of Americans.

The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian, and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers, The Observer and The Guardian Weekly, The Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of The Guardian free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for The Guardian the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in its journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK.

The Washington Post

The Washington Post

The Washington Post is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area.

Echelon Conspiracy

Echelon Conspiracy

Echelon Conspiracy is a 2009 American action thriller film directed by Greg Marcks, from a screenplay by Michael Nitsberg and Kevin Alyn Elders. It stars Shane West, Edward Burns, Ving Rhames, Jonathan Pryce, Tamara Feldman, and Martin Sheen.

Source: "Enemy of the State (film)", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 17th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_State_(film).

Enjoying Wikiz?

Enjoying Wikiz?

Get our FREE extension now!

References
  1. ^ a b c d "Enemy of the State box office". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on 18 December 2008. Retrieved 29 June 2008.
  2. ^ Greg Huxtable (May 2013). "ENEMY OF THE STATE - Production Notes". Cinema Review. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  3. ^ "Writing ENEMY OF THE STATE, a talk with David Marconi-1999". Scenario-vol-5-no-1-1999/page/118/mode/2up?view=theater/. 1999.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ^ "Enemy of the State (1998)". Motion State Review. 28 November 2014. Archived from the original on 21 July 2019. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
  5. ^ Willis, John (May 2000). Screen World Volume 50 (1999 ed.). p. 162. ISBN 1-55783-410-5.
  6. ^ a b "Looking back at Tony Scott's Enemy Of The State". Den of Geek. 30 May 2013. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 14 February 2019.
  7. ^ Natale, Richard (23 November 1998). "Rugrats' Outruns 'Enemy'". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 3 November 2012. Retrieved 10 November 2010.
    - Welkos, Robert W. (24 November 1998). "Weekend Box Office: 'Rugrats' Has Kid Power". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 3 November 2012. Retrieved 10 November 2010.
    - Gaul, Lou (24 February 2000). "Public 'Enemy' No. 1". The Beaver County Times. p. 62. Archived from the original on 18 May 2021. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  8. ^ "Enemy of the State Movie (1998)". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on 26 November 2020. Retrieved 13 March 2023.
  9. ^ "Enemy of the State Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 20 December 2008. Retrieved 25 October 2008.
  10. ^ "Find CinemaScore" (Type "Enemy of the State" in the search box). CinemaScore. Archived from the original on 9 August 2019. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
  11. ^ Turan, Kenneth (20 November 1998). "Enemy of the State: 'Enemy' Has a Little Secret: Let the (Nifty) Chase Begin". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 3 November 2012. Retrieved 25 October 2008.
  12. ^ Maslin, Janet (20 November 1998). "Enemy of the State: The Walls Have Ears, Eyes, and Cameras". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 21 May 2011. Retrieved 25 October 2008.
  13. ^ Beitiks, Edvins (20 November 1998). "High-octane "Enemy'". San Francisco Examiner. Archived from the original on 20 December 2008. Retrieved 25 October 2008.
  14. ^ "Enemy of the State movie review (1998) | Roger Ebert".
  15. ^ Newman in Pramaggiore & Wallis, Film: a critical introduction Archived 21 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine, pg 283.
  16. ^ Lesley Goldberg (20 October 2013). "'Enemy of the State' TV Sequel Set at ABC". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 11 February 2021. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
  17. ^ Bamford, James; C. Scott Willis (3 February 2009). "Spy Factory". NOVA. Boston: WGBH Educational Foundation. Archived from the original on 22 May 2010. Retrieved 6 September 2012.
  18. ^ "Inside the NSA: The Secret World of Electronic Spying". CNN. 25 March 2001. Archived from the original on 8 August 2012. Retrieved 18 June 2013.
  19. ^ Zeke J Miller (7 June 2013). "Former NSA Chief Was Worried About "Enemy Of The State" Reputation". Time. Archived from the original on 13 June 2013. Retrieved 18 June 2013.
  20. ^ "Looking back at Tony Scott's Enemy Of The State". Den Of Geek. 30 May 2013. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 13 February 2019.
  21. ^ John Patterson (16 June 2013). "How Hollywood softened us up for NSA surveillance". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 21 September 2016. Retrieved 11 December 2016.
External links

The content of this page is based on the Wikipedia article written by contributors..
The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence & the media files are available under their respective licenses; additional terms may apply.
By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use & Privacy Policy.
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization & is not affiliated to WikiZ.com.