Sep 17

Sep 17 TIFF 2020 film review: 'Enemies of the State'

Any film that launches right out of the gate with a suburban family fleeing under the cover of darkness, donning disguises to throw off facial recognition surveillance to escape federal authorities sets the bar pretty high. And that's just the starting point for the intense documentary 'Enemies of the State' (screening during the 45th Toronto International Film Festival) before taking bizarre turn after bizarre turn.

In short: Documentary recounts an American family's defection to Canada after becoming entangled in a web of secrets and lies when their hacker son is targeted by the U.S. government.

Filmmaker Sonia Kennebeck's documentary simply would not work if this was a convention spy vs. spy story - instead, the unstated hook of 'Enemies' is how the son of a minister gets sucked into an international incident. The subject, Matt DeHart, and his family are the epicenter of 'Enemies' - and Kennebeck presents the DeHart family as a generally normal middle class family.

Kennebeck's film takes some wild turns so unpredictable that, if someone plainly described the events depicted in 'Enemies' - well quite frankly, it would strain credibility. Without revealing any spoilers, DeHart's story is objectively incredible, in the scope and scale of the accusations levied against DeHart and the accusations level against the U.S. government. It's a tantalizing story that reaches into the darkest corners of the Internet and extends to various corners of North America.

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While 'Enemies' is all too ready to drop all sorts of crazy assertions - ranging from allegations of torture to suspicions of espionage, the documentary is light on hard, definitive and irrefutable evidence. There's always some magical MacGuffin that could prove DeHart's innocence or definitively affirm claims against the federal government -- but no one can find it or it's out in the world somewhere. Maybe one such MacGuffin is tolerable in any film, however, 'Enemies' has a few too many - which is especially frustrating given the admittedly fantastic claims presented by DeHart's family.

What's left is a documentary defined by a string of pretty unbelievable assertions. The film desperately tries to seed some conspiratorial elements - that simply just never stick. And for all the documentary's various twists and turns, it's most frustrating turn is its last, as the film reveals new information ... that seems to make everything before it a waste of time. It's a reveal that, if let out at any time earlier in the film, would have given DeHart's story some much needed certitude.

Final verdict: 'Enemies' swings for the fences, but strikes out swinging. The end product is a pile of unsubstantiated, dangling accusations and loose ends that lumbers to an unfulfilling conclusion.