Just saw Enemy of the State with Will Smith and Gene Hackman for the second time.
A decent movie, but something still bothers me - was Gene Hackman’s character really trying to sell out Will Smith in the scene with him dressed as the policeman?
In some ways it would seem like a nice setup if Brill had known about the plan to get the mob guys involved from the beginning, but the movie makes it seem pretty obvious that he didn’t.
Any ideas?
The ending of the movie was pretty contrived, though it was mildly entertaining to see the two groups of baddies massacre each other.
I don’t see why you think Hackman was trying, or even thinking about, selling out Smith. As far as I could tell, Hackman dressed up like a cop becuase he figured the NSA goons wouldn’t risk gunning him down in public near a police station. Then it all went to hell and they grabbed him. At what point was he considering ditching Smith?
If you ask me, the scene in the lingerie store was even more contrived than the ending!
But the geography of that part of the movie is off. Way off. The lingerie store is supposed to be on Columbia Avenue. The biologist flees from there. Then the surveillance guys say “He’s heading north toward Dupont Circle.” Uh, dudes, Columbia Avenue is north of Dupont Circle! To get to Dupont from Columbia, you’d have to head south. Not only that, the biologist gets creamed by the truck on the southbound underpass on Connecticut Avenue going down under Dupont Circle. You know the railing where people are looking down on the accident? That’s right in front of Kramerbooks, the bookstore made famous by Monica Lewinsky and Kenneth Starr? It’s on the north side of the circle.
Why on earth would the director turn Washington’s geography topsy turvy? He didn’t think anyone would notice? I was just
Uh-oh. They got to Jomo Mojo.
Hmmm…so They don’t want us to know about the Secret Topsy-Turvy Geography of Washington, D.C. Clearly, the ST-TGoWDC is vital to Their plans.
If you remember, the original plan was that Hackman would get the NSA guys to admit on tape whatever it was that he wanted, and Smith would stop taping in enough time for him to avoid getting caught. Hackman didn’t follow along with the plan, and Smith was rather upset. But later they seemed to be OK together, and it wasn’t clear why.
You want to know what’s really not clear? Hackman was transmitting the conversation and Smith was recieving it. How do you track a receiver, and do so in two minutes or less?
As for Hackman deviating from the plan; it was clear all along that he had his own agenda, but he did tell Smith to get out, if he hadn’t already. Doesn’t sound like a betrayal, just the Hackman character grinding his own axe.
It’s obvious, Bryan! Secret NSA technology. Duh. 
I didn’t think that Hackman was deviating from the plan. I thought that the Voight character was babbling on and on to give himself time to trace Will Smith, while giving away nothing. Hackman was just trying to get him to admit to something… anything.
Before someone corrects my own minor mistake in geography, I’ll correct it myself. The railing over the accident scene in the Connecticut Avenue tunnel is just north of Q Street. Kramerbooks is a block south of there. I should know, I worked in the Dupont Circle area for a couple years, and I was just there yesterday. I just wanted to work a mention of it into my post, so I compressed a bit. I’m still baffled, though, how the director could have gotten DC so totally screwed up.
How is it different from any other movie that supposedly takes place in D.C.? I’ve never seen a single film set in D.C. in which there was any significant traveling around the city where the geography made any sense. They always screw it up.
You mean like the scene in True Lies where Ahnuld rides a horse on the roof a hotel which is too tall to legally be built in DC?