A spy-thriller with The
Fresh Prince Will Smith. I'm hopeful but very nervous. Tony Scott is
directing so that's a big plus. Time to get paranoid with Enemy of
the State.
The plot is really
straight forward when you break it down. Someone recorded something
they shouldn't and they now need to die. The way they tell their
story is what i like. So the «bad-guys» in this movie is the NSA.
They have their goons and tech and all that. It all starts with an
U.S. NSA official named Thomas Reynolds(Played by Jon Voight who's
known for his work on Mission: Impossible and Heat) meets with a
congressman in a park to discuss support for a new counter-terrorism
legislation that gives the NSA more surveillance powers. The
congressman will keep blocking its passage since he believes it would
destroy the privacy of American citizens. Reynolds and his team
murder the congressman and makes it look like an accident. They later
discover that a wildlife researcher had a camera aimed at the
location of the murder. The researcher watches the footage, transfers
it to a video game cartridge and flees his apartment when the
Reynolds team comes to get the evidence from him. In his escape from
the team he bumps into Robert Clayton Dean(played by Will Smith who's
known for his work on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Bad Boys and Men
In Black) and slips him the cartridge without him knowing it. The NSA
discovers that Robert may have the cartridge and they plant bugs in
his house to find the video. Since Robert doesn't know that he has
the cartridge it never comes up so the NSA needs a new plan. They
want to make him not believable so they get him fired from his job as
a lawyer, freeze his bank accounts and get's his wife to throw him
out of his house. Robert finds help in Brill(Gene Hackman who's known
for his work on Superman 1 & 2, Poseidon Adventure and Crimson
Tide) who worked for the NSA as a communications expert before going
into hiding.
When this movie came out
in 1998 it scared a lot of people because of what it shows the NSA
being capable of. They bug and track people, the listen in to
phone-calls and freeze your money. It made some people get a little
paranoid of what the NSA(and other agencies) could do. While it is a
little too much to believe it works very well anyway. The director
Tony Scott(who is known for his director work on Top Gun, Crimson
Tide, Deja Vu and Unstoppable) holds a great pace in the movie and
makes a lot of it believable(as long as you go along a little). It's
intense and you really feel for Robert in his work for getting back
his old life. I don't know if this goes under an guilty pleasure or
not but i really like the movie. It has a lot of problems and a lot
of good things but if you watch this and expect The Shawshank
Redemption you are going to be disappointed. Will Smith and Gene
Hackman is good. Will Smith shows that he can do more things than
just Action and Comedy. Nice for a Friday night on the couch.
TL;DR
Good spy-thriller. It
holds up great. Some things they to as the NSA you just know can't be
done but if you can look past that there is a lot this work. Will
Smith is really good in his role. Tony Scott's great directing.
Intensity is great.
My question for you:
What
is your guilty pleasure movie of the 90's?
Please
leave a comment(negative,positive, suggestions or/and answers).
Until
next time, stay fresh.
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Twitter:
@HarmlessKen
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