Other mistake: When Will Smith checks into the hotel and his credit cards are invalid, we see that the time is 5:38 and it is daylight outside. The only problem with this is that it is supposed to be around December given all the Christmas decorations. It would be dark then in the Baltimore, not soaked with daylight.
Enemy of the State (1998)
Directed by: Tony Scott
Starring: Gene Hackman, Will Smith, Jon Voight, Lisa Bonet
Other mistake: At the end of the film, Dean can see himself in his TV. He looks up to the fire alerter, assuming the camera filming him is up there. The film camera then also pans up to the fire alerter, indicating the camera is there, too. For this angle, the picture in the TV is wrong, as it is taken from the point of view of the TV.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: Dean is only assuming the camera is in the smoke detector since that's one of the places he and Brill hid the other cameras. The shot of the smoke detector is just to show the audience what Dean is looking at, even though his guess is wrong.
Revealing mistake: Near the end of the film, after the shootout, there's a shot with the camera zooming in on a newspaper at Will Smith's front door. If you pause it right once the headline fills the top of the screen, you'll notice all the paragraphs are just repeated, word for word. Additionally the word "received" is misspelled.
Trivia: The cat that Gene Hackman has is the same cat that was in Men in Black, and similarly, the cat is put into a bag in this film just like in MIB.
Trivia: During the brief occasional shots of the satellite you can hear Morse code. The code translates as CQ, which is amateur radio speak for 'is anybody there?' - hardly spy stuff.
Trivia: Seth Green, who plays one of the main surveillance guys in the van, is not listed in the opening or closing credits. In addition, Tom Sizemore, who plays the mobster Paulie Pintero, goes uncredited.
Congressman Phillip Hammersley: Telecommunications Security and Privacy Act. Invasion of privacy is more like it. - You read the Post?"This bill is not the first step towards the surveillance society. It is the surveillance society."
Brill: The government's been in bed with the entire telecommunications industry since the forties. They've infected everything. They get into your bank statements, computer files, email, listen to your phone calls... Every wire, every airwave. The more technology used, the easier it is for them to keep tabs on you. It's a brave new world out there. At least it'd better be.
Robert Clayton Dean: What the hell is happening?
Edward Lyle: I blew up the building!
Robert Clayton Dean: Why?
Edward Lyle: Because you made a phone call! (01:34:13)
Question: What does the sequence with the fake Brill have to do with anything? I've watched this scene several times and can't find its significance in the film.
Chosen answer: The fake Brill is an undercover federal agent trying to find out what Will Smith knows about the video tape.
Poor writing though as that character is never spoke of again.
Question: Is it true that there are acres of computers under the DoD? And that they scan for key words? Can anyone confirm that?
Chosen answer: If there are, it is kept secret. But there is ECHELON http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON which is able to listen in on most forms of electronic communication.
Question: Why does Thomas Reynolds want the telecommunications security and privacy act to be passed into law so bad that he has a congressman killed? To advance his career?
Answer: Yes, and to increase the importance of his agency.
