The-Reel-McCoy -- Enemy Of The State

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	Enemy Of The State

	Rated: R
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Will Smith does it again. Another great movie. How does he do it? He is very good at picking movie scripts. Enemy Of The State highlights Smith as the main character, the one through whom we experience this movie. Smith is, perhaps, the actor with whom I am able to identify most with on screen, which is another topic of discussion in and of itself. The movie also shows off Smith's fast and sarcastic mouth in the fun-filled way that we are used to seeing. However, this movie gets much more intense that Smith's other movies and weaves an intricate plot into the works.

The basic theme of the movie is that the NSA, in an attempt to provide America with security from terrorists, gets a little megalomaniacal and tries to invade America's privacy and strip away our civil liberties. And Will Smith finds himself caught between the NSA and a hard place.

The adrenaline of this movie never seems to stop. And the chase scenes are some of the best that I have seen. Watching someone run from the NSA is almost like watching a mouse run through a maze trying to get away from the cat watching over it. By the time Gene Hackman arrives on the scene, I had already felt like I had received my money's worth. Hackman's part in the movie as Brill, a former NSA agent turned underground information broker, was very entertaining. A question: Is Will Smith establishing a pattern of teaming up with old white men?

I had to laugh though at the software used in this movie. As I am a software developer, I found it funny that the NSA's software was so graphical. For instance, when doing a social security number search, a set of numbers in a large, red, 3-D font go scrolling across the screen. Ha ha! Also, from a computer perspective, I found it funny that all computers were SUN workstations. Can somebody say, "Commercial Endorsement?"

What perhaps could have been done better would be to delve into the lives and the decisions of the "bad guys". Jonathan Voight is a particularly good actor and played his part well, even though he didn't have much to work with. I feel that the movie would have been much more interesting to see him struggle with his evil motives or to see him evolve into the ruthless person that he embodies throughout the movie. On the other hand, this may have taken away from the man-against-the-system feel of the movie and given way to more of a man-against-the-man-who-became-corrupted-by-power aura.

What I truly LOVED about this movie was the ending. I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it, but I truly enjoyed strategic heroism rather than the overdone physical heroism.