9.12.2006

And the Most Random Cast Award goes to...

Enemy of the State (1998)! Congrats to all for playing. I've been blazing through movies lately, and I doubt there's a movie with a more randomly assembled collection of actors.

On the surface, it's basically a Harrison Ford-styled thriller (um, with Will Smith playing the part of Harrison) where a mild-mannered lawyer gets thrown into extrodinary circumstances. But literally everybody in this movie is somebody. It's actually weird when you don't recognize someone...

The cast includes a before-he-was-profitable Jack Black playing it straight; the pairing of Jamie Kennedy and Seth Green as surveillance buddies (who I always used to get confused. You can almost hear the director say, "We need a Jamie Kennedy/Seth Green type in this role. We can get 'em both? Let's use 'em!"); Jason Lee, Lisa Bonet, Gabriel Byrne and Tom Sizemore all in bit roles; and Regina King (who voices Riley and Huey in the Boondocks cartoon) as Will Smith's wife. Even the people who are nobodies (Scott Caan, Jake Busey) are sons of famous people. There are so many people in this movie, I can't name them all. It's a Kevin Baconesque nightmare.

Tony Scott is also director of the second place movie in this category, True Romance. But that movie, written by Quentin Tarantino, sort of begs for stunt casting. This was like watching Witness with Jim Carrey as Amish Guy #2. Weird.

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