A
person may be described as such a state enemy if the said individual has been
accused of committing crimes like treason. However, due to political reasons,
an individual for example in an authoritarian government might be declared as a
state enemy. Mostly, the pretext of doing it for the sake of the security of
the nation is given. In the process, the political enemy would be treated
equivalent to a person who has endangered the lives and well being of a certain
country or population. Therefore should there be an agent who develops dealings
with more than one country, the agent would be considered a state enemy, i.e.
is not friendly to all of the entities that make up the state.
A spy-thriller movie called “enemy
of the state” was produced in 1998 to try and depict this scenario in a rather
twisted manner. With Tony Scott as its director, David Marconi the writer
depicts National Security Agents (NSA) who is rogue. The NSA agents are
involved in the murder of a Congressman due to political instigations. They
later try to perform a cover up for their deeds through the destruction of
evidence and also intimidating the witnesses. Some of the stars in this movie
include Jon Voight, Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Regina King and Lisa Bonet. The
producer f this film is Jerr Bruckheimer (Samdrala, 3).
Plot
While the
Congress of the United States of America was moving to pass some new
legislation to expand the powers that were given the law enforcement security
agencies, the move becomes highly opposed by Phil Hammersley (Jason Robards),
another congressman. Thomas Reynolds (Jon Voight) the congressman who was the
major supporter for this bill decides to kill him to ensure its passage.
Unfortunately, while his team was killing Phil at a certain remote park, a
video camera belonging to Daniel Zavitz (Jason Lee) had captured all that had
happened. Reynolds is later to become aware of the existence of this video
after Daniel alerting a friend who was an underground journalist. However,
before diying in a road accident while on the run, Daniel passes the cartridge
containing the video to his college friend, Robert Dean Clayton (Will Smith)
who was also a labor lawyer.
Soon, Dean’s house is raided by the
NSA on discovery that he may have been given the video. Further, false
information of Dean’s involvement in love affairs with his ex-girlfriend,
Rachel Banks (Lisa Bonet) are created by the NSA. This causes him to lose his
job and furthermore gets frozen bank accounts. Soon he is kicked out of the
house by his wife but later meets with Banks who offers to arrange a meeting
for him with a contact of hers who looks for information, Brill (Gabryme). He
however ends up with a decoy to thrown off his trail the NSA Agents. Edward
Lyle (Gene Hackman) who is portrayed as a retired former NSA helps Dean who
remove to remove tracking devices.
Another supporter of the bill, Sam
Albert is blackmailed by Lyle and Dean. Various secretes of the state are
recorded by Dean and his new friend luring Reynolds so as to agree into a
meeting. However, the NSA captures them before they could hold the meeting.
Dean however makes up the story that the footage was in the hands of a mafia
family called the Pinteroi. He knew beforehand that they were under Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) surveillance. In the ensured fire fight, Reylons
together with several NSA agents die as the FBI comes to a discovery of the
legislation plot. Lyle after escaping from the scene goes to exile in an
unknown location in the tropics. He later sends to Dean a goodbye message through
his television. Dean on the other hand gets back together in his marriage and
is gets clearance from all criminal charges. This legislation is to fail in the
long run.
Success of this movie
From a general
point of view, this movie was a good movie. Upon its release in 1998, it became
a must watch in many Cinemas around the world. This movie that was set in
Baltimore and the Washington D.C. but mostly filmed in Baltimore first opened at
number 2. By the time of its crossing 2, 393 theaters, it was bringing in
approximately $8, 374 for each venue. At the end of its first weekend, it had
crossed a gross of $20,038,573 (Jets, 5). This success can perhaps be
attributed to some of the factors as discussed below.
Professional Critics
The
first boost to its success might have been the fact that professional critics
received it well. Various websites that are considered to give professional
criticism like Rotten Tomatoes, metacritic and others gave a good rating (Weiss
23). Rotten Tomatoes for example presented “70% fresh “The LA Times on the
other hand noted how it overcame lapses occasionally. Janet Masiln on the other
hand from the New York Times, had a wonderful approval for its sequences of
action. It is with such approvals and ratings that would drive those who are
yet to watch this movie to go out and watch it.
Popular Actors
The other reason
for its success is the use of famous actors especially wills Smith. With just
the knowledge that Will Smith has played a role in this film, there was frenzy
for people especially from outside the America to go and watch the film. This
was just to see the good performance that they must have watched after the launch
of other movies like Men In Black.
Relation to real life
situation
The final reason that the success of
this movie could be attributed to is how the movie relates to real life
situation. Hackman, a veteran performer believes that the elements in this
movie are quite realistic. These elements do make the audience to think twice
about the government’s red tape especially if these audiences are from the U.S.
According to Hackman, the scenarios depicted in this movie can really happen.
According to him, the U.S. Government in specific can really go an extra mile
to extra that piece of information that it deems necessary from anyone. Thus
this film depicts a possible real life situation.
Conclusion
Other
than just the action, this movie had a twisting dram that was quite
unpredictable and this was captivating to the audience. It was a good movie
that deserved all the attention that it finally got. It can thus be said that
the movie was a true success and it is no suprise3 that up to these days it can
still be found in homes of some movie lovers.
Works cited
Jets, Magazine. The weekly source of African American
political and entertainment news. New York: Johnson Publish Company
Ram, Samudrala. Enemy of the Sate Review. April, 1999.
November 29th, 2010. http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies/enemy_of_the_state.html
Robert, Weiss. Face Value: Where Actors End
And Effects Begin. 2010. November,
29th 2010.http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122154118
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