Enemy of the State

Enemy of the State (1998)

7 factual errors - chronological order

(8 votes)

Factual error: When the monitor with all the information on Brill is shown, Afghanistan is misspelled as "Afganistan". (01:38:55)

DBC

Factual error: When requesting images from the satellite, the position (latitude and longitude) is always given in degrees and minutes (but NOT seconds), and a few moments later they get a picture centered on the person they are looking for. Now a minute equals a nautical mile (or 1.85 kilometers), so with a position given in degrees and minutes you'd get a region bigger than 3 square kilometers.... which makes it impossible to find a person that fast (especially in a crowded town).

Factual error: While escaping from thugs in Hackman's pickup, Smith points a sawed-off shotgun in front Hackman's face and fires at the baddies. Hackman should have been deaf, but he didn't even blink.

Factual error: During an early part of the movie, Will Smith is driving with his wife in their SUV. While the movie is supposed to be set in DC, you will see a piece of neon artwork outside their vehicle. This artwork is on Olive street in downtown LA, underneath the California Plaza complex.

Factual error: Satellite images only work on clear days with no clouds. But most of the days shown in the movie are cloudy which would make most of the spying impossible.

Factual error: After Will Smith escapes the ambulance and runs into the transit tunnel, NSA crew tunes to the frequency 7.210 Mhz as indicated by a piece of tape stating that is the City authority frequency. Trouble is twofold. First that frequency is an Amateur Radio (Ham Radio) frequency, only for use by licensed amateurs, and second all municipalities and local organizations use VHF frequencies and higher due to propagation and the antenna lengths involved in order to talk to mobiles and vehicles. The frequency should have been above 150 Mhz to be accurate.

Gary Kendrick

Factual error: When the NSA people identify Brill and go through his file, they tell us that he graduated from Drexel University in 1964. Brill could not have graduated from Drexel University (DU) in 1964 because it was called Drexel Institute of Technology (DIT) at that time, which is the name that would be in the official file. It didn't change from DIT to DU until 1970.

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.

Christoph Galuschka

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.

More mistakes in Enemy of the State

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."

More quotes from Enemy of the State

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.

More trivia for Enemy of the State

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.

manthabeat

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.

More questions & answers from Enemy of the State

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