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)
Plot summary
Directed by: Tony Scott
Starring: Gene Hackman, Will Smith, Jon Voight, Lisa Bonet
Robert Clayton Dean (Will Smith) is a lawyer with a wife and family whose happily normal life is turned upside down after a chance meeting with a college buddy (Jason Lee) at a lingerie shop. Unbeknownst to the lawyer, he's just been burdened with a videotape of a congressman's assassination. Hot on the tail of this tape is a ruthless group of National Security Agents commanded by a belligerently ambitious fed named Reynolds (Jon Voight). Using surveillance from satellites, bugs, and other sophisticated snooping devices, the NSA infiltrates every facet of Dean's existence, tracing each physical and digital footprint he leaves. Driven by acute paranoia, Dean enlists the help of a clandestine former NSA operative named Brill (Gene Hackman), and Enemy of the State kicks into high-intensity hyperdrive.
Teaming up once again with producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Top Gun director Tony Scott demonstrates his glossy style with clever cinematography and breakneck pacing. Will Smith proves that there's more to his success than a brash sense of humor, giving a versatile performance that plausibly illustrates a man cracking under the strain of paranoid turmoil. Hackman steals the show by essentially reprising his role from The Conversation--just imagine his memorable character Harry Caul some 20 years later. Most of all, the film's depiction of high-tech surveillance is highly convincing and dramatically compelling, making this a cautionary tale with more substance than you'd normally expect from a Scott-Bruckheimer action extravaganza.
Adrian
More mistakes in Enemy of the State
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.
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.
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.
Mister Ed
Poor writing though as that character is never spoke of again.