♥♥♥♥
+ Best Action-Thriller of the Year + Best Political Movie of the Year + Best Washington DC Movie of the Year
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| The stars look apprehensive on this undeniably unimpressive poster for Tony Scott's Enemy of the State |
A strong Washington DC lawyer experiences a former school buddy confiding his troubles to him before he expires in a wild accident. Soon our man comes in possession of a tape of a murder. - And as a result becomes a hunted man.
Enemy of the State is the 11th film by English master filmmaker Tony Scott (The Hunger (1983)), written by David Marconi (Collision (2013)). It sports an unusually strong cast and is a high-charged political action-thriller, which hooks with intense scenes between Jason Robards (Parenthood (1989)) and Jon Voight (The Champ (1979)), who plays the super-villain here. Will Smith (Shark Tale (2004)), Philip Baker Hall (In Good Company (2004)) and Gene Hackman (Superman (1978)) are such professionals that the plot works even when it becomes a bit contrived and feeds us unlikely strikes of luck. As with several other Scott films in the action-thriller genre, Enemy of the State is edited at a fast pace throughout, which at times becomes exasperating.
The issue of the right to privacy versus the consideration for national security continues to be a mined and hot topic. In Enemy of the State, the evil, governmental mass-surveillance side, as represented by the NSA, attain an almost Communist glow, - they steal our protagonist's blender and seem to have a wish to literally own everything, - which is a clever perspective in an already very entertaining film.
Related reviews:
Tony Scott: Stoker (2013) - Chan-wook Park's over-styled American debut revolts and bores in turns (producer)
Unstoppable (2010) - T. Scott's mechanically exciting final movie
Déjà Vu (2006) - T. Scott cuts a helluva suspense-cake!
Domino (2005) - T. Scott's bounty-hunter biopic a complete misfire, mega-flop
1998 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Days of Thunder (1990) or, Very Little Thunder
Watch a short trailer for the film here
Cost: 90 mil. $
Box office: 250.6 mil. $
= Box office success
[Enemy of the State premiered 18 November (New York) and runs 132 minutes. Smith declined to star in Brian De Palma's Snake Eyes (1998) in preference for Enemy of the State. Shooting took place in Maryland, mostly in Baltimore, and in Washington DC and California from November 1997 - April 1998. The film opened # 2, behind The Rugrats Movie, to a 20 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it 'had legs', spending a total of 4 weeks in the top 5 and grossed 111.5 mil. $ (44.5 % of the total gross). Comparisons were drawn between this and Hackman's turn in Francis Ford Coppola's acclaimed, similarly themed The Conversation (1974). Roger Ebert agreed with Film Excess in awarding the film 3/4 stars. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has announced that he is producing a TV-series based on the film. Enemy of the State is fresh at 71 % with a 6.4 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
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