Enemy of the State
When congressman Jason Robards is killed by Jon Voight for refusing to pass a privacy bill, birdwatcher Jason Lee catches the murder on film and is soon targeted for assasination by Voight's men.The information is soon passed to Robert Clayton Dean (Will Smith) and then things really get going.
Smith is a rich young lawyer soon up to his neck in trouble. The bulk of the movie is spent with government officials chasing Smith around New York and Baltimore.
No mere cat and mouse game this. The enemy tracks our hero with the aid of a satellite which could read a newspaper from orbit - should it want to.
As his credit cards are cancelled and his marriage seems doomed, thanks to an old love interest threatening Smith's state of marital bliss, it looks like curtains for our suave hero. And then Gene Hackman steps into the frame, looking like Harry Caul, his character from Coppola's classic thriller The Conversation.
Hackman's paranoid ex secret services operative is now a loner who loves little except his cat and operates from a cut off abandoned warehouse.
With world-weary class, he turns out to be an invaluable aide in this tale of Big Brother gone mad.
A relentless chase of a movie with rapid editing (take a bow Chris Lebenzon) and the use of many film stocks adding to the gritty, edgy feel.
Most of all, the fine script from David Marconi makes this one of Tony Scott's best films for years.
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