It's a bit of a suprise to see rapper/comic Will Smith turn up in an adult suspense thriller like "Enemy of the State." It's somewhat reminiscent of when Bruce Willis stepped front and center into the action genre back in 1988 with the now classic film "Die Hard" and the results are similarly favorable.  What we have here is one of the best techno-thrillers to come out of Hollywood since "Ransom" two years back and Smith goes a long way to making it work.

"Enemy of the State" is basically a study in paranoia.  David Maraconi's tightly-paced script plays on every conspiracy theorist's wet dream that the U.S. government can and does monitor every facet of everyone's life through a complex web of spy satellites, video cameras, listening devices, and other cool techno do-dads.  Into this web is thrown Will Smith, a slick Washington D. C. lawyer who is unknowingly handed a video tape detailing the murder of a U.S. congressman by a devious bureaucrat played by Jon Voight.  Voight wants to pass a communications bill allowing the National Security Agency to invade the privacy of anyone it chooses anytime it chooses.
The congressman opposed the bill and had to be killed.  The fact that Smith's character has the proof of the murder, even though he doesn't know it, makes him an obvious threat and he has to be taken out of the picture.  The villains opt to force Smith to reveal the evidence by discrediting him and destroying his life.

What follows is a series of cat and mouse chases as Smith's life is destroyed bit by bit and byte by byte in order to discredit him into revealing the evidence (the bad guys don't know if Smith is aware that he has the tape or not).  Smith tries to figure out what is happening to him and why and is aided in his quest by a shadowy figure known as Brill (the always brilliant Gene Hackman), an ex-N.S.A. communications expert who helps Smith eventually turn the table on his tormenters.

Smith delivers a few of his trademark funny lines and he's always played the smooth character quite well.  What's nice to see here is that character sees his world fall apart and Smith is very convincing as he watches in frustration as his job, marriage, and credibility come tumbling down all around him.  We sympathize with the guy as he is played as a very real human being and not some action super-hero. His performance holds the film together and he is in almost every
scene.  Smith is backed-up nicely by  Hackman and a long list of supporting players each adding a nice sense of humanity to their roles.  Almost every character in this movie comes across as just
that: a character.

Not to say that this is a People Movie.  It's not.  Tony Scott ("Top Gun" and "Crimson Tide") directs with quick cuts and cool camera angles that keeps the action flowing at a rapid pace.  His chases inter-cut images from surveillance satellites and various T.V. and security cameras to "hop" the audience through the action and the effect is very realistic.  You feel like both chaser and chase-e.  Dan Mindel's cinematography is a beautiful mix of shadows and light which enhances the mood of the film without making it feel too heavy.

The technology displayed in the movie is awesome in its own right. I'm not sure just how many of the spy gizmos we see in "Enemy" are real and how many are from the screenwriter's imagination (I'm willing to bet the ranch on the fact that most of them are real and in use today) but we believe what we're seeing and that's the work of a good film-maker.

Overall a solid piece of work. It's nice to see Tom Sizemore ("Saving Private Ryan") turn up in an unbilled role as a mob heavy who threatens smith.

9 out of 10!