Enemy of the State | |
---|---|
Directed by | Tony Scott |
Written by | David Marconi |
Produced by | Jerry Bruckheimer |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Dan Mindel |
Edited by | Chris Lebenzon |
Music by | |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures Distribution |
Release date |
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Running time | 132 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $90 million [1] |
Box office | $250.8 million [1] |
Enemy of the State is a 1998 American political action thriller film directed by Tony Scott, written by David Marconi, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman with an ensemble supporting cast consisting of Jon Voight, Lisa Bonet, Gabriel Byrne, Dan Butler, Loren Dean, Jack Black, Jake Busey, Barry Pepper, Scott Caan, Jason Lee, Tom Sizemore, Seth Green, and Regina King. The film tells the story of a group of corrupt National Security Agency (NSA) agents conspiring to kill a congressman and the cover-up that ensues after a tape of the murder ends up in the possession of an unsuspecting lawyer.
Enemy of the State was released on November 20, 1998, by Buena Vista Pictures through its Touchstone Pictures label. The film grossed $250.8 million worldwide, and received generally positive reviews from film critics, with many praising the writing and direction as well as the chemistry between Smith and Hackman.
Senior NSA Assistant Director Thomas Reynolds meets in a public park with Congressman Phil Hammersley to discuss a new piece of counterterrorism legislation that dramatically expands the surveillance powers of American intelligence agencies over individuals and groups. Hammersley remains committed to blocking its passage, arguing that the potential benefits of the bill aren't worth sacrificing the privacy rights of ordinary citizens. Reynolds, wanting the bill passed to obtain a long-delayed promotion, has a team of agents loyal to him murder Hammersley and stage his death as a car accident following a heart attack.
Labor lawyer Robert Clayton Dean is working with his firm on a case involving restaurant owner and mob boss Paulie Pintero. Dean meets with his ex-girlfriend, Rachel Banks; Rachel works for "Brill", a man Dean occasionally hires to conduct surveillance operations but has never met in person. She delivers a tape incriminating Pintero for labor racketeering, which Dean threatens him with to ensure the mobster agrees to a favorable settlement.
Reynolds and his team spot a biologist swapping out a tape from a remote wildlife camera stationed across the lake from the murder scene. They identify him as Daniel Zavitz. When Zavitz views footage of the murder, he immediately contacts a journalist to publicize the tape. Reynolds' team intercepts the call and rush to Zavitz's apartment. Zavitz transfers the video to a disc and hides it in an NEC TurboExpress game console before fleeing. He bumps into Dean, his old college friend. Panicked, Zavitz slips the disc into Dean's shopping bag without his knowledge. He runs into the path of an oncoming fire truck and is killed instantly, while Reynolds has Zavitz's journalist contact murdered.
After Reynolds' team identify Dean and figure Zavitz slipped him the footage disc, they visit him disguised as cops. When Dean refuses to let them search his belongings without a warrant, the agents erroneously believe that he is knowingly withholding the disc. They break in Dean's house while he and his family are out and plant bugs on his clothes and personal effects. They also disseminate false evidence that Dean is laundering money through his firm for Pintero and having an affair with Rachel. The subterfuge destroys Dean's life: he is fired from his law firm, his bank accounts are frozen pending a federal investigation, and his wife, Carla, throws him out. Dean asks Rachel to contact Brill for help. Reynolds intercepts the call and sends one of his men to impersonate Brill. The real Brill rescues Dean and warns him that the NSA is responsible for ruining his life. After Dean manages to evade the team, he is horrified to find Rachel shot dead in her home to silence her and him framed for the murder.
Dean finds the disc and shows it to Brill, who identifies Reynolds. The NSA agents raid Brill's hideout; Brill and Dean escape but the disc is destroyed in a car fire. Brill reveals that he is really Edward Lyle, a former NSA communications expert stationed in Iran during the Iranian Revolution. His partner, Rachel's father, was killed, but Lyle escaped and has been working covertly ever since, employing Rachel as a courier to watch over her. Lyle urges Dean to start a new life, but he insists on clearing his name. Dean and Lyle trail Congressman Sam Albert, a key supporter of the bill, and record a videotape of him with his mistress. Dean and Lyle hide an NSA listening device in Albert's hotel room, knowing that he will find it. Lyle then hacks into Reynolds' personal bank account and deposits large sums of money to make it look like he's being paid to blackmail Albert.
A meeting is arranged with Reynolds to exchange the video so Reynolds can be tricked into incriminating himself. Reynolds' men instead ambush the meeting and hold Lyle and Dean at gunpoint, demanding the tape. Dean, anticipating this, lies and says that the evidence is hidden at Pintero's restaurant, which is currently under FBI surveillance. He then tricks Pintero and Reynolds into believing that the other man has "the tape". The encounter immediately escalates into a deadly close-quarters firefight when a gangster shoots an NSA agent in the back; Pintero, his men, Reynolds, and the agents are all killed. During this ordeal, Lyle sends the FBI a live feed of the incident to trigger a raid on the restaurant before slipping out in disguise. Dean is rescued, the survivors are arrested, and the conspiracy is exposed.
Congress abandons the bill to avoid scandal, while the NSA executes a cover-up of Reynolds' actions. Dean is cleared of all charges and reconciles with Carla. Lyle sends Dean a "farewell" message via his TV, partially showing himself relaxing on a tropical island with his cat.
The story is set in both Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, and most of the filming was done in Baltimore. Location shooting began on a ferry in Fell's Point. In mid-January, the company moved to Los Angeles to complete production in April 1998. [2] David Marconi spent over 2 1/2 years developing his original script at Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer Films under the direction of Lucas Foster, their development executive at the time. Oliver Stone expressed early interest in directing Marconi's script, but ultimately Jerry Bruckheimer went with Tony Scott who he had a long standing relationship with because of their previous collaborations. [3] The writers Aaron Sorkin, Henry Bean and Tony Gilroy each performed an uncredited rewrite of the script. [4]
Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise were considered for the part that went to Will Smith, who took the role largely because he wanted to work with Hackman, and had previously enjoyed working with the producer Jerry Bruckheimer on Bad Boys . George Clooney was also considered for a role in the film. Sean Connery was considered for the role that went to Hackman. The film is notable for having cast several soon-to-be stars in smaller supporting roles, which casting director Victoria Thomas credited to people's interest in working with Gene Hackman. [5]
The film's crew included a technical surveillance counter-measures consultant who also had a minor role as a spy shop merchant. Hackman had previously acted in a similar thriller about spying and surveillance, The Conversation (1974). The photo in Edward Lyle's NSA file is of Hackman in The Conversation. [6]
Enemy of the State grossed $111.5 million in the United States and $139.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $250.8 million, against a production budget of $90 million. [1]
The film opened at #2, behind The Rugrats Movie , grossing $20 million over its first weekend at 2,393 theaters, averaging $8,374 per venue. [7] It made $18.1 million in its second weekend and $9.7 million in its third, finishing third place both times. [1]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 70% based on 84 reviews, with an average rating of 6.44/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "An entertaining, topical thriller that finds director Tony Scott on solid form and Will Smith confirming his action headliner status." [8] Metacritic assigned the film a normalized score of 67 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [9] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of A− on an A+ to F scale. [10]
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times expressed enjoyment in the movie, noting how its "pizazz [overcame] occasional lapses in moment-to-moment plausibility". [11] Janet Maslin of The New York Times approved of the film's action-packed sequences, but cited how it was similar in manner to the rest of the members of "Simpson's and Bruckheimer's school of empty but sensation-packed filming. [12] In a combination of the two's views, Edvins Beitiks of the San Francisco Examiner praised many of the movie's development aspects, but criticized the overall concept that drove the film from the beginning—the efficiency of government intelligence—as unrealistic. [13] Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times felt "the climax edges perilously close to the ridiculous" but overall enjoyed the film, particularly Voight and Hackman's performances. [14]
Kim Newman considered Enemy of the State a "continuation of The Conversation ", the 1974 psychological thriller that starred Hackman as a paranoid, isolated surveillance expert. [15] [6]
In October 2016, ABC announced it had green-lit a television series sequel to the film, with Bruckheimer to return as producer. The series would take place two decades after the original film, where "an elusive NSA spy is charged with leaking classified intelligence, an idealistic female attorney must partner with a hawkish FBI agent to stop a global conspiracy". [16] However, nothing ever came to fruition.
This section needs to be updated.(June 2013) |
An episode of PBS's Nova titled "Spy Factory" reported that the film's portrayal of the NSA's capabilities was fiction: although the agency can intercept transmissions, connecting the dots is difficult. [17] However, in 2001, the then-NSA director Gen. Michael Hayden, who was appointed to the position during the release of the film, told CNN's Kyra Phillips that "I made the judgment that we couldn't survive with the popular impression of this agency being formed by the last Will Smith movie." [18] James Risen wrote in his 2006 book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration that Hayden "was appalled" by the film's depiction of the NSA, and sought to counter it with a PR campaign on behalf of the agency. [19]
Given the events of 9/11, the Patriot Act and Edward Snowden's revelations about the NSA's PRISM surveillance program, the film has become noteworthy for being ahead of its time regarding issues of national security and privacy. [20]
In June 2013, the NSA's PRISM and Boundless Informant programs for domestic and international surveillance were uncovered by The Guardian and The Washington Post as the result of information provided by the whistleblower Edward Snowden. This information revealed capabilities such as collection of Internet browsing, e-mail and telephone data of not only many Americans, but citizens of other nations as well. The Guardian's John Patterson argued that Hollywood depictions of NSA surveillance, including Enemy of the State and Echelon Conspiracy , had "softened" up the American public to "the notion that our spending habits, our location, our every movement and conversation, are visible to others whose motives we cannot know". [21]
ECHELON, originally a secret government code name, is a surveillance program operated by the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, also known as the Five Eyes.
The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems. The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission, the majority of which are clandestine. The NSA has roughly 32,000 employees.
The Conversation is a 1974 American neo-noir mystery thriller film written, produced, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Cindy Williams, Frederic Forrest, Harrison Ford, Teri Garr, and Robert Duvall. Hackman portrays a surveillance expert who faces a moral dilemma when his recordings reveal a potential murder.
Jerome Leon Bruckheimer is an American film and television producer. He has been active in the genres of action, drama, comedy, fantasy, horror and science fiction.
Anthony David Leighton Scott was an English film director and producer. He made his theatrical film debut with The Hunger (1983) and went on to direct highly successful action and thriller films such as Top Gun (1986), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Days of Thunder (1990), The Last Boy Scout (1991), Crimson Tide (1995), Enemy of the State (1998), Man on Fire (2004), Déjà Vu (2006), and Unstoppable (2010).
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NSA warrantless surveillance — also commonly referred to as "warrantless-wiretapping" or "-wiretaps" — was the surveillance of persons within the United States, including U.S. citizens, during the collection of notionally foreign intelligence by the National Security Agency (NSA) as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program. In late 2001, the NSA was authorized to monitor, without obtaining a FISA warrant, phone calls, Internet activities, text messages and other forms of communication involving any party believed by the NSA to be outside the U.S., even if the other end of the communication lays within the U.S.
The Terrorist Surveillance Program was an electronic surveillance program implemented by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. It was part of the President's Surveillance Program, which was in turn conducted under the overall umbrella of the War on Terrorism. The NSA, a signals intelligence agency, implemented the program to intercept al Qaeda communications overseas where at least one party is not a U.S. person. In 2005, The New York Times disclosed that technical glitches resulted in some of the intercepts including communications which were "purely domestic" in nature, igniting the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy. Later works, such as James Bamford's The Shadow Factory, described how the nature of the domestic surveillance was much, much more widespread than initially disclosed. In a 2011 New Yorker article, former NSA employee Bill Binney said that his colleagues told him that the NSA had begun storing billing and phone records from "everyone in the country."
Room 641A is a telecommunication interception facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency, as part of its warrantless surveillance program as authorized by the Patriot Act. The facility commenced operations in 2003 and its purpose was publicly revealed in 2006.
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[[File:|thumb|Locations of CIA/NSA Special Collection Service (SCS) eavesdropping sites in 2004]] [[File:|thumb|Location and status of CIA/NSA Special Collection Service (SCS) eavesdropping sites as of August 13, 2010]]
William "Bill" Edward Binney is a former intelligence official with the United States National Security Agency (NSA) and whistleblower. He retired on October 31, 2001, after more than 30 years with the agency.
PRISM is a code name for a program under which the United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies. The program is also known by the SIGAD US-984XN. PRISM collects stored internet communications based on demands made to internet companies such as Google LLC and Apple under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to turn over any data that match court-approved search terms. Among other things, the NSA can use these PRISM requests to target communications that were encrypted when they traveled across the internet backbone, to focus on stored data that telecommunication filtering systems discarded earlier, and to get data that is easier to handle.
Edward Joseph Snowden is an American and naturalized Russian citizen who was a computer intelligence consultant and whistleblower who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013 when he was an employee and subcontractor. His disclosures revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many run by the NSA and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments and prompted a cultural discussion about national security and individual privacy.
The practice of mass surveillance in the United States dates back to wartime monitoring and censorship of international communications from, to, or which passed through the United States. After the First and Second World Wars, mass surveillance continued throughout the Cold War period, via programs such as the Black Chamber and Project SHAMROCK. The formation and growth of federal law-enforcement and intelligence agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA institutionalized surveillance used to also silence political dissent, as evidenced by COINTELPRO projects which targeted various organizations and individuals. During the Civil Rights Movement era, many individuals put under surveillance orders were first labelled as integrationists, then deemed subversive, and sometimes suspected to be supportive of the communist model of the United States' rival at the time, the Soviet Union. Other targeted individuals and groups included Native American activists, African American and Chicano liberation movement activists, and anti-war protesters.
During the 2010s, international media news reports revealed new operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly relate to top secret documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents consist of intelligence files relating to the U.S. and other Five Eyes countries. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published, with further selected documents released to various news outlets through the year.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama favored some levels of mass surveillance. He has received some widespread criticism from detractors as a result. Due to his support of certain government surveillance, some critics have said his support violated acceptable privacy rights, while others dispute or attempt to provide justification for the expansion of surveillance initiatives under his administration.
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