Mark Reviews Movies: ENEMIES OF THE STATE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 29, 2021

Matt DeHart and his parents have spent years saying that he, who had enlisted in the U.S. Air National Guard, was discharged from the military out of fear of what he knew, having served as an intelligence analyst with a top-secret clearance. According to a statement from the military, though, DeHart had no access to top-secret or classified information.

That's exactly what one would expect them to say, right? Denial of supporting evidence is part of a cover-up, correct? That's initially the view taken by director Sonia Kennebeck in Enemies of the State, an engaging and intentionally convoluted documentary that wants us to feel confused, overwhelmed, and infuriated by the story unfolding. By the end, it wants to feel confused, overwhelmed, and infuriated by the story that has unfolded for entirely different reasons.

It revolves around DeHart, who worked with the hacker/activist group Anonymous, was given a dump of classified documents, was hounded by the FBI for his possession of that information, and went on the run out of fear for what the government could and would do to him. All of this occurred around the same time as Chelsea Manning's leak of U.S. military personnel killing civilians in Baghdad and Edward Snowden's dissemination of classified National Security Agency documents to journalists. Seeing what those two did and what happened to them as a result, DeHart's claims seem superficially, frighteningly reasonable.

Kennebeck wants us to believe that, although not for the reason one might expect. Her film plays out as a convincing real-world thriller, filled with plenty of dramatic re-creations (using both personal accounts and official recordings/transcripts), jumps back and forth through time to provide and delay certain revelations, and a number of—if we do believe what DeHart and his family say—inevitable moments of terror and horror, as the government proves it will do what DeHart fears it can do.

A summary of the timeline of DeHart's predicament is almost impossible to detail. For one thing, Kennebeck does present much of this in a sort of jumble, because later details in DeHart's case are more important to the story than earlier ones. We have to know, mainly, that the government supposedly is after him. The reasons are vital, of course, but they're also, since this story is a thriller, intentionally left a mystery for the most part.

The other key reason for the complicated chronology is that Kennebeck knows much more about the truth than any of us and, for that matter, anyone she interviewed at the time. She can't give away certain details, or the film's entire game would be destroyed. One could discuss the ethics of this technique of playing a game with the truth, but in the end, the impact of the film's final revelations is so strong, making such a potent point about the power of what we want to believe over the actual truth, that one can forgive the manipulation.

As for what we do learn, DeHart was an intelligence analyst with the military. He was given an honorable discharge, on account of a depression diagnosis. After that, things become increasingly fuzzy.

The story, according to DeHart himself (during testimony while seeking asylum in Canada) and his parents Paul and Leann (who are present during all of these asylum proceedings, as well as officially documented events in the future, and in face-to-face interviews with the filmmakers), is that DeHart became involved in the so-called dark web. From there, he began to be active in Anonymous (His mother pulls out the group's trademarked Guy Fawkes mask to prove her son's membership, which, by that point in the narrative, seems pretty obvious and convenient) and started a server for people to deposit digital documents.

One of those information drops, as DeHart and his parents state, contained classified information. Warned about federal agencies looking into his online activity, DeHart transferred the contents of the server, including the allegedly damning intelligence, to a pair of flash drives. Soon after, the police arrived at DeHart's home, where he still lived with his parents, with a search warrant, looking for evidence of child pornography.

DeHart and his parents—and, yes, it's important to note how involved the parents are in all of this—say this accusation and eventual criminal charge are all a ruse, meant to discredit a man the government fears. The asylum-seeking in Canada and DeHart's claim that the FBI tortured him transforms the man's story into one of a truth-seeking-and-telling martyr, being persecuted and prosecuted for whistleblowing on the government—even though he never actually blew a whistle on anything.

Here, the specifics must end. Kennebeck presents a stylistically convincing case for DeHart's allegations, using actors lip-reading or reciting actual audio or court transcripts and presenting a line of experts on the subject of online activism (a college professor), DeHart's story (an investigative journalist), and his legal troubles (a surprising number of attorneys representing him). She seeks responses from the various government and military bodies accused of malfeasance, and the filmmaker even obtains interviews with the lead detective in and chief prosecutor of DeHart's actual criminal allegations, which, obviously, have nothing to do with classified information.

It all seems fair and increasingly impartial (One sequence has the detective directly responding to claims by DeHart's parents), but that's not the end of Enemies of the State. There is an answer here, and it's one that makes a lot of people look fairly foolish. The ultimate lesson here goes beyond whatever the truth of DeHart's story is. Kennebeck's film does play a game with the audience, and in the end, she forces us to consider how the rules, the style, and the craft of a documentary can obscure more than it actually reveals.

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