Enemy of the State (1998)

I love a good technothriller and that word describes Enemy of the State to a tee. In my opinion, only the recent Eagle Eye tops it for a technothriller based on spy-satellite technology. Will Smith is excellent in everything he does -- as is Gene Hackman -- and the high-speed surveillance vignettes between scenes really make the movie for me -- conveying a sense of pressing pursuit by the Powers That Be and evading pursuit by Smith and Hackman. (I also recommend seeing Harrison Ford in Patriot Games and Hackman with Ford in The Conversation.) Sure, most of the tropes have been used before -- clothes planted at a murder scene to frame the targeted whistleblower, clothes laced with surveillance bugs and global-position transponders, evil government conspiracies -- but Enemy of the State marshals it all together quite masterfully. It even crosses all that with a subplot involving an FBI stakeout of a mafia operation that results in a major ballistic brouhaha. I'll watch this one any time and I'd like to own it. 4.5 stars. (5-4-09 posted 6-24-09)