Enemy of the State (1998) on Netflix
Robert Clayton Dean, a Washington labor lawyer, works a racketeering case. A panicking wildlife biologist slips a disc into his shopping bag, and NSA agents start watching him.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.3/10277,065 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes71%
Trailer
Plot summary
Congressman Phillip Hammersley opposes a counterterrorism bill that would give intelligence agencies broader surveillance powers. Thomas Reynolds, an assistant director at the National Security Agency, supports the bill, and his team stages Hammersley's assassination as a fatal car accident. A wildlife biologist, Daniel Zavitz, discovers footage of the killing, and Reynolds sends his team after him. Panicking, Zavitz runs into Robert Clayton Dean, a Washington labor lawyer and old college acquaintance, and slips the disc into Dean's shopping bag before he is struck in traffic. Agents find Dean's business card on the body and assume he knows about the tape. Dean is handling a racketeering case against Paulie Pintero. Agents impersonating police officers try to enter his home without a warrant. When Dean turns them away, they enter the house and hide surveillance devices in his clothes and belongings.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Enemy of the State (1998)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise were considered for the lead before it went to Will Smith, who was eager to work alongside Gene Hackman and reunite with Bruckheimer after Bad Boys. Smith's casting meant he turned down Snake Eyes, and Sean Connery was approached for Edward Lyle, the role Hackman took.
- General Michael Hayden, who became NSA Director shortly after the film's release, remarked that he made the judgment that the agency could not survive with the popular impression of it being formed by the last Will Smith movie. Journalist James Risen wrote that Hayden was appalled and started a public relations campaign to counteract it.
- In a nod to Hackman's earlier work, Lyle's NSA personnel file features a photo of the actor from The Conversation (1974), a similarly themed espionage thriller.
- Screenwriter David Marconi developed the original script over two years while working under producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Oliver Stone initially expressed interest in the project before Bruckheimer selected Tony Scott, and Aaron Sorkin, Henry Bean and Tony Gilroy all contributed uncredited rewrites.
- In a 2013 article for The Guardian, journalist John Patterson argued that films like Enemy of the State and Echelon Conspiracy helped normalize the idea of ubiquitous government surveillance, and may have softened up public opinion to accept mass data collection.
