Rating: 
Summary: DANG GOOD MOVIE!
Review: Hey bros, this movie is ill stuff, I suggest you buy it now, the action is great, the story is great, the technology in this movie is iller then ever!
Rating: 
Summary: Very entertaining and plausable thriller
Review: What I like about Will Smith in this movie is that he can show he can play a serious actor without resorting to his Fresh Prince character again and again. Case in point:Independence Day and Men in Black. Both good movies, but not much of a stretch for Smith. Here, he is quite darned good as a DC labor laywer set up by an agency of the government, headed by Jon Voight. It turns out Smith is carrying a piece of evidence that will expose Voight as the murderer of a famous congressman.Will Smith's life is thrown in disarray; his wife thinks he is cheating on her with his ex-girlfriend, he's been fired, and now his only hope is a recluse played by Gene Hackman. Together only can they clear Smith's name and bring down Voight's character. The action scenes are quite good, and the sound from this DVD will blow your socks off during the explosions. The best part though is about basic privacy. There are satellites looking down on us all the time, how the government can hack our computers and listen in our phone calls in the name of national security. Some very serious questions are raised in this enjoyable action thriller.
Rating:
Summary: WELL MADE PARANOID ACTION-ADVENTURE
Review: Will Smith turns in a convincing performance in this perpetual motion action-adeventure. By bringing together the elements of a high tech world, a group of evil and ambitious government spooks, and an upwardly mobile African American lawyer-family man married to a savvy, lovng and loyal but suspicious wife the story keeps up the audience interest from beginning to end. Smith plays an aggressive smart attorney trying to get the goods on a Mafia kingpin who infiltrated a labor union. While going after the bad guys, he gets unknowingly mixed up in a CIA plot that springs from the assassination of a U.S. Senator who is too politically independent. Someone slips incriminating evidence (recorded on a computer floppy disk) into Smith's Christmas shopping bag and the bad government guys want it • • • and also the good guy lawyer dead. Thereby hangs the story. Gene Hackman is terrific as the former high tech intelligence operative living underground, who must help Smith stay alive and try to get his life back. Good movie with a good message. Plus this is an exciting action-adventure without clichés and stereotypes.
Rating:
Summary: You won't want to put this movie on pause!
Review: Will Smith plays Robert Dean, a lawyer who falls foul of the NAtional Security Agency when a videoed murder of a top White House official by the NSA falls into his hands. When the NSA find out, they use every means necessary to get to him! They use sophisticated satellite surveillance(obviously according to the producers the satellites can see perfect images through cloud cover and 175 miles in orbit looks a lot more in a couple of shots! . . . but then again you never know what they've got!) to watch his moves and even plant bugs and video cameras in his house by posing as kid burglars and faking a break-in. Then his credit cards become invalid, his phones are tapped, whatever next! When Dean learns he is a wanted man, an 'enemy of the state', he stumbles across an ex-NSA spook, played well by Gene Hackman. Together they try to put each other's lives back in order and hunt down those responsible, using any means necessary themselves! The twist at the end is clever, and the action and suspense scenes never stop. This is a top technothriller with everything possible - spirited performances all round, great setpieces and visuals(the NSA's headquarter ops centre is well defined on DVD) and a story that grabs your attention from the word go and leaves you riveted throughout. All this from the producers of CON AIR, THE ROCK and ARMAGEDDON, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. Oh, one more thing. The Region 2 version of the DVD plays perfectly, so those of you who have had problems with a defective Region 1 might like to try the British/European version if your players are suitable. ENJOY!
Rating:
Summary: Enemy Of The State
Review: This is an intense conspiracy thriller. Shadow operations, satellite intelligence and the whole works. Will Smith is Robert Dean, attourney at law, who's life is put in shambles after accidentally receiving something he has no idea about. Enemy of the State is one of my all time favorie movies. It was well shot and Will Smith gives a great performance. This is one of Tony Scott's best films. With a colorful cast like Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Jack Black, Jamie Kennedy, and more, this film is hard to miss. A must-see for any conspiracy theorists lovers. If you haven't seen it than you've missed out.
Rating:
Summary: A Pleasant Surprise
Review: Despite the fact that we both like Gene Hackman and Will Smith, my wife and I put off seeing this movie for along time, thinking that it was probably going to be just another run-of-the mill Jerry Bruckheimer action flick, all of which get to be a bit overblown and "samey" after awhile (IMO Crimson Tide, and the spoof, ConAir, are his best films)...but what would otherwise just have been another pretty good action/suspense film, took on an eerie resonance in the post 9/11 era--the legislation that the Jon Voigt character was willing to kill to get passed had more than a faint aroma of "The Patriot Act"-- and I'm surprised that more reviewers haven't mentioned that.
As far as the "lack of substance" that some reviewers mention, that is entirely subjective, and I do not agree with it. As far as reviewers who talk about this not being as good as 1974's The Conversation, get a clue that elements of this movie are conscious homages to that earlier (and IMO, badly dated, and overrated) movie--one of the things that's fun about Bruckheimer's movies is that they are full of homages to earlier suspense/action flicks, esp. those that influenced him. Also, folks, get a clue to the fact that the Will Smith character's "dumbness" and naivety, is part of the point of this movie: his ignorance of technology, and his over-reliance on other people for information, put him at the mercy of the "heavies" in this movie, and left him wide open to the crisis in which he found himself embroiled. As an aside, along the lines of the eerie resonance of this movie in the wake of 9/11, it gave my wife and I a bit of a chill down our spines when Gene Hackman's character revealed by "hacking" into the NSA computer that the Jon Voigt character's birthday was "9/11"--an eerie coincidence three years before 9/11/01.
Rating: 
Summary: ENJOYABLE FILM - BUT HOLD OUT FOR ANAMORPHIC
Review: The star rating system unfortunately doesn't allow reviewers to assign separate at-a-glance ratings for content versus technical presentation. My abysmal lone star reflects only criticism of this disc's technical merit and not its content.
From a content perspective, I'd assign four stars for an enjoyable, action packed ride that blends splendid actors with a compelling story and effectively married cinematography and CGI special effects.
From a technical perspective, this is an old DVD with a letterboxed non-anamorphic transfer. In 2004 this is unacceptable. It's particularly unforgiveable given this film's high-tech orientation and the fact that anamorphic transfers are no more expensive to produce than letterbox.
I recommend NOT purchasing this title unless and until Touchstone updates the transfer. By that time, a side benefit might be a Special Edition with the extras this film deserves. A DTS sound track would be a worthy bonus.
Rating: 
Summary: Enemy of the State (1998)
Review: Director: Tony Scott
Cast: Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Regina King, Loren Dean, Jake Busey, Barry Pepper.
Running Time: 127 minutes.
Rated R for violence and language. Another producer Jerry Bruckheimer/director Tony Scott thrill ride without substance, this time pitting family man lawyer Robert Clayton Dean (played by Will Smith in a ho-hum performance) against a technologically-driven government. Not knowing that the trivial meeting with an old friend would cause him so much trouble, Dean gets sucked into a conspiracy case involving a rogue National Security Agent (Jon Voight) who killed a United States congressman because he accidentally received a video tape with footage of the murder. With incredible surveillance techniques and technology, Voight is able to track all of the lawyer's moves and keep tabs on him. Our hero's life is turned upside down until he meets up with a stealthy former NSA active named Brill (played very well by Gene Hackman). With the assistance of Brill, Dean attacks the government head on and must learn the truth in order to save his life. Director Tony Scott brilliantly uses the camera to portray his views, jolting the characters through a series of incredible chase scenes, rip-roaring explosions, and intense firearm combat, but ultimately "Enemy of the State" focuses solely on the unbridled advances in special effects abilities that it keeps the audience from understanding the story and getting involved with the characters. Smith is only adequate in his first major "dramatic" role, while Hackman and Voight pick up some of the slack in their devilishly effective parts. A must-see if you are into big explosions and dynamite cinematography, but one to leave on the shelf if over-acting and a mediocre script are an annoyance.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I strongly recommend you buy or at least rent this fantastic film. It's got it all, suspense, action and even comedy for the lad-eez, as Will Smith might say. It's got excellent pacing and great suspense. The storyline is a little implausible, but it's hollywood so just chill out and expect it. Kick back and watch this rollercoaster ride of a film.
Great performance from Will Smith, his best to date in fact, suggesting there is more than just comedy and Bad Boyz to his routine. And Gene Hackman too - what more could you want?
If i was Roger Ebert, i'd give it two thumbs up!
The DVD is loaded with extrea special features too, and that makes the DVD in particular a must. Don't just buy this film, make sure you get it on DVD.
I give it 8/10, but cos i'm generous i'll round it up to 5 stars, including those great DVD features.
Rating: 
Summary: Slickly produced but laughably implausible --- 2 1/2 stars
Review: This is supposed to be a thriller. OK, whatever...the viewer obviously knows that Will Smith will emerge from this harrowing adventure more or less intact, so there really isn't any tension created by putting his character in peril. Therefore, the only tension & suspense the producers of this film can hope to create comes from playing on the audience's sense of paranoia. "Oh my god, what if the government really IS watching my every word & deed?" thinks the audience. Oh my god, this could actually be happening! All you have to do is read some of the reviews here and you will see that paranoia is a major factor in this film's appeal. All I could think of as I watched this film is, give me a break. One rogue NSA bureaucrat, supported by a handfull of computer geeks, and they are supposed to be able to conduct an operation this vast? Are you kidding me? Has anyone ever heard of information overload? I don't doubt that a good deal of this technology exists, but let's get real folks --- if the NSA was really conducting surveillance on this scale, the amount of raw data the agency would have to sift through simply boggles the mind. The NSA would have to employ half the population of the USA to spy on the other half. If the NSA's surveillance is this bush-league, most of us could commit all manner of security breaches and never get caught! Ironically, I found myself feeling more secure about not being scrutinized by the government after having seen this film. As to the film itself --- sure, all the chase scenes were gripping, the camera angles were great, blah blah blah. The production values in this movie are top-notch, but so what? Bruckheimer & Tony Scott can do movies like this in their sleep, so it's no big deal. The same can be said for Jon Voight & Gene Hackman, who pretty much phone it in with their roles. From a production standpoint, this movie is indistinguishable from the hundreds of other so-called thrillers that the Hollywood machine has churned out over the last few years. Ho hum. Overall, this just really was a thoroughly mediocre film.
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