Customer Reviews

Enemy of the State (Special Edition Unrated Extended Cut)

5 star:		(131)
4 star:		(67)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

MOVIE: Enemy of The State is another one of Jerry Bruckheimer's mid 90's action extravaganzas. He reunites with Tony Scott to bring us this action flick about government coverups and how technology is used to basically track every aspect of your life. The movie is about a lawyer who is unwillingly thrown into a wild cat and mouse chase. A congressman is murdered near a reservoir where research is done on migratory geese. So, unknowingly, the whole thing is caught on tape and ends up in the hands of a nerdy and young Jason Lee. He realizes what he has in his possession and during a foot chase he bumps into his old friend played by Will Smith and secretly drops the tape in his bag. Now Will Smith's character is thrown into a world of espionage without knowing why he is being hunted. He meets up with Brill, played by Gene Hackman, an ex NSA agent who ends up helping him. Hackman basically plays a reincarnation of his character in Coppola's The Conversation. The movie is directed at a fast pace by Tony Scott, and it's an overall entertaining action flick. I felt the movie tried to be smarter than it actually was and that the characters were very plain and boring.

ACTING: I didn't like Hackman in this role, but Will Smith brought some life into the movie. For people who haven't seen the movie in awhile you should check it out to recognize some young faces including Jack Black, Jake Busey, Jaimie Kennedy, Seth Green, and the of course the previously mentioned Jason Lee.

VIDEO: The great thing about the recent releases of Con Air, Crimson Tide, and Enemy Of The State are the new anamorphic transfers of the films. They are greatly appreciated and are so much better than the old ones. The quality of the transfer has not improved greatly in terms of picture quality, but there is a noticeable difference.

AUDIO: As for sound we get a very dull Dolby 5.1 mix. All the dialogue is usually center heavy, and rarely does action actually envelope you from the surround speakers. The track is the same from the old release, so it's not the best. There are some scenes with helicopters and some big explosions that utilize the surround speakers well, but overall it's a very dull mix.

SPECIAL FEATURES: The "making of" featurette was actually more extensive than I was expecting. They talk more about the gadgets used in the film versus the actual movie, but overall I found it to be interesting. All the interviews were done back during the making of the movie and it was a pretty extensive behind the scenes for what the movie is. One thing I found extremely interesting was that they talked about a scene where Will Smith is chased by cars in an underground tunnel in his bathrobe. In reality, the cars didn't fit into the tunnel so they had do take the cars apart and weld them back together in the tunnel. The entire scene was maybe a minute long! I just found it interesting that all that work was done for maybe a blip of action. Anyway, the next featurette is basically some on set footage. Overall the two featurettes do justice for what this movie is.

BOTTOM LINE: I got confused whether this was indeed an "extended" cut of the film or not. The cover you see on places like Amazon is not the cover that you actually get. The cover of the film is actually labeled "Special Edition", but the menu does indeed say "Unrated Extended Edition". So, I am thoroughly confused. I didn't notice anything noticeably new, and the running times listed are identical between the old disc and the new one. Still, the upgrade is worth it.

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.

I am not a great Will Smith fan, but he does a very outstanding job in this HIGH TECHNO, EDGE OF YOUR SEAT, INTELLIGENT, DON'T GO TO THE BATHROOM WITHOUT PAUSING THE VIDEO - video! You absolutely won't go wrong with this one.... promise!

I'll be brief. Enemy of the State is a good action flick with a lousy transfer to DVD. If you have a standard television stop reading this review now: you won't notice what I'm talking about. If you are running a 16:9 TV then read on.

Like many before, this supposedly "wide screen" version is nothing of the sort. The DVD is encoded in a standard 4:3 image, with black bars matting the top and bottom. In other words, this is a non-anamorphic transfer. What that means is that the image you are seeing is lower resolution than a standard NTSC TV signal because of the fewer vertical lines present. On a 16:9 TV the image looks "squished" shorter and "stretched" longer. Most 16:9 TV's have a mode that can re-stretch the image to achieve the proper aspect ratio. The problem there is now the horizontal lines are clearly visible throughout the film.

I wish studios would stop the absurd practice of releasing "matted" widescreen transfers, and only call a DVD "Widescreen" if the transfer is anamorphic. But as long as they're doing it, hopefully enough people will protest to get the studio's attention.

This is an excellent thriller/drama movie with a very relevant plot for todays society. It may have been far fetched when it was made but it is more of a blue print for todays reality.

The audio and video transfers are excellent and definitely rate a tier 1 presence for Blu-Ray.

This movie has a good plot, good actors and overall is entertaining. The only thing in the form of a critique would be that the screenplay writers seemed to want the movie to run into tomorrow. It could have ended much sooner than it did by cutting out some of the scenes that contributed little-to-nothing to the movie. Because of that, when it gets close to the end, you might either already be bored, or on the other hand, happy that the movie is ending soon.
As I said, good plot, good acting, and screenwriters with an ego.

The film pulls no punches. This has to be close to the finest film Will Smith has ever made, and it's hard to see why it didn't do a lot better at the box office.

If anything, its even more relevant than the day it was released. None of the technology is fictional, (despite some comments) it's all in deployment right now.

Ironically, since the enactment of the Patriot act in the USA, and the second act more recently, this film has assumed a quite weirdly prophetic status. Many comments recently made about the changing character about America (See Tim Robbins recent address to the National Press club) are very to the point here and can't be ignored. It's so easy to see that people like Jerry Falwell are now coming very close to issuing the kind of frightening rhetoric seen in this film - art has met the horizon of reality all too quickly.

Perhaps though, the film's single most biting comment is on the nature of the lobby system and the problem of the separation of judicial and executive powers in the USA, which if anything is far more malefidious and dangerous than what the film depicts.

But, sufficient to say, all this is nothing compared with Hackmans gem of a performance of terse and cranky sainthood. He excels at the hero - putting everything into his character. This only gives the film more authenticity and a really hard edge.

I just can't fault this movie. The ending is so good, it's impossible really, but there can be no end of sofas being thumped way out there in suburbia and enthusiastic whoops. There's no doubt this film absolutely deserves such.

"Enemy Of The State" remains the best film ever made by Will Smith. This is also Tony Scott's best work since "Crimson Tide." "Enemy Of The State" is more than your usual thriller, this movie makes you think. Writer David Marconi writes an intelligent screenplay that has a great, paranoid edge. Like "The X-Files," here we have the impression that no one is safe from the conspirators within the government. There's a great, technological angle and the action sequences are amazing. Camera shots are breathtaking and the cinematography is rich and gritty as in "The Rock" and "Con Air" (like this one, Jerry Bruckheimer acted as producer for those as well). The characters are also intriguing and interesting. The plot is complex and hard-hitting. This is a true thriller.

Pretty decent movie, fast paced, keeps your interest. However, this is not a widescreen anamorphic DVD. Instead, it's an inferior, old-tech letterboxed edition. In other words, you can still see it correctly in your widescreen tv, but with a magnified setting; therefore, you lose vertical resolution. Don't buy this inferior-quality product.

When compared to MAN ON FIRE and DOMINO you have to understand that this is one of those movies where an average joe's life gets flipped upside down when he intercepts very politically, and potientially deadly, threatening materials. The minute we find ourselves plugged into this man's world we are introduced to several people who are keeping tabs on him 24 hours a day. They wait outside in trucks, bugging him, tapping him, questioning him, even picking up satiliete images to pin-point his exact location. It gives an all new meaning to the words "overactive paranoia." But, in DOMINO, it related the most becuase DOMINO, as well, was about someone normal who evoked a change in her boring life. This is the story of a man who didn't ask for his life to be changed. Whihc makes him the perfect everyday hero, in my humble opinion.

Enjoy!