` enemy of the State ' be a mostly enjoyable exercise in ` north by Northwest ' Lite . Will Smith be the professional who become a innocent on the run from both the bad guy and the law . the novelty in this case be that both be the same - and when the axis of evil have the resource of the State behind it , the odds be fairly stack against its enemy . of course , like Cary Grant in Hitchcock 's film , Smith be not really innocent - though essentially decent and a loving father , he be complacent , arrogant , politically apathetic , and have cheat on he wife . he have a oedipal problem to work through , have to put a bossy wife-mother in she place and supercede a father figure -lrb- brill -rrb- . the subsequent peril he undergo be a purgatorial chastening , a test he must take to prove himself a adequate , trustworthy family man again . anything that get in the way - be it the mob who threaten he client , or the woman he have the affair with - must be remove . it be good to remember this dubiously punitive aspect of the film whenever anyone talk about its liberal paranoia .  i nearly fall off my chair laugh when I read that certain critic who should know better take the film 's ` politics ' of paranoia seriously : some even suggest a family resemblance to Coppola 's ` the conversation ' -lrb- Gene Hackman play a similar character in both film -rrb- , one of the most difficult film in american cinema . ` enemy ' be not difficult or ambiguious or doubt - it know exactly what it stand for . unlike Hitchcock , who use he camera to implicate the viewer in he matrix of voyeurism , Scott 's camera stand outside the various weapon of surveillance of the film , uncover , rather than spy ; clarify , rather than obscure . unlike Coppola 's film , we know from the start who the enemy be and what he weapon be - it be merely a matter of be vigilant and get rid of he . yeah right .  Tony Scott be no more interested in political paranoia than he be in flag-waving or militarism in ` top gun ' . both narrative give he a structure within which he can practice he vision of total Cinema . so the best bit of ` enemy ' be the chase - the splattersome pursuit of Jason Lee ; the whole hotel sequence with Hackman , as Smith be seek by increasingly hysterical Feds ; and the tunnel run - even if these be more keystone than Keaton . it be less interesting when people make speech about privacy , the ` surveillance society ' and the connection between the telecommunications industry -lrb- whoop ! -rrb- and the military-industrial-complex -lrb- or whatever it be -rrb- . if I want to know about politics or threat to my civil liberty or establishment fascism in the US , I 'll go to a newspaper , NOT Hollywood . still , in the ` light ' of ` recent event ' , ` enemy ' have a lot more bite than it use to , with reference to both us-backed Afghans and pretzel .