Film: Enemy of the State (1998)

Blu-Ray


Review: If not for Gene Hackman, I think this film would not rate as highly for me. Will Smith does a decent job as the average citizen caught up in a government cover-up, but the film really improves when Hackman makes his appearance at the halfway point. With all the recent revelations of government tracking of telephone calls and internet usage, the theme of this film only grows more timely. It is also interesting to recognize a lot of the actors playing the faceless NSA technicians this time around.

Quotes:
"We believe Mr. Zavitz may have passed sensitive materials to you."
"What sort of materials?"
"Sensitive, sir."

"Jones, Krug, what, are you guys from Communications?"
"No, we're Ops."
"You can tell by their haircuts."

"Tell us abut Rachael Banks."
"I'll tell you what. Rachael, was my girlfriend in my second year of law school, we still remain in close contact, and we swap information from time to time."
"Did you have an affair with her 4 years ago?"
"Ever beat off in the shower, Brian? Ever had any homosexual thoughts?"
"Bob, that's..."
"None of my fuckin' business. You're damn right it's not. I love my wife and I love my son, absolutely with no equivocations, and that's none of your fuckin' business either."

"You're transmitting. Get rid of your watch."
"My wife gave me this watch."
"Then keep it."

"If you live another day I will be very impressed."

"Planning a quick getaway?"
"Ever since I met you."

"Can you get a feature scan and pattern matching on him?"
"No, he's smart, he never looks up."
"Why does he have to look up?"
"The satellite is 155 miles above the Earth. It can only look straight down."
"That's a bit limited, isn't it?"
"Well, maybe you should design a better one."

"Fort Meade has 18 acres of mainframe computers underground. You're talking to your wife on the phone and you use the word 'bomb', 'president', 'Allah', any of a hundred keywords, the computer recognizes it, automatically records it, red-flags it for analysis. That was 20 years ago."

"What the hell is happening?"
"I blew up the building."
"Why?"
"Because you made a phone call."

4 out of 5 Stars