Question: Build a movie plot around this: Who believes Pintero is behind the smear campaign? Dean
Answer:
In the 1990s, U.S. National Security Agency official Thomas Bryan Reynolds (Jon Voight) meets with U.S. Congressman Phil Hammersley (R-NY) (Jason Robards) in a public park to discuss support for new counter-terrorism legislation the U.S. Congress is pushing that dramatically expands the surveillance powers of intelligence agencies on individuals and groups. Hammersley remains committed to blocking its passage, since he believes it would almost totally destroy the privacy of American citizens. Reynolds, determined to have the bill pass so as to gain a long-delayed and anticipated promotion, has his team murder Hammersley, spread heart pills over his car, place him in the car and push it in a lake to make it look like he had a heart attack. In the aftermath, they discover too late that wildlife researcher Daniel Zavits (Jason Lee) had a camera aimed in the woods at their location. Zavits inspects the footage and, realizing he has captured the congressman's murder, calls a journalist he knows. The call is monitored by Reynold's team who attempt to break into his apartment to retrieve the tape. Realizing he is in grave danger, he transfers the video to a ZIP disc and places it into an NEC Turbo handheld before fleeing the apartment ahead of Reynolds's men.Zavits is eventually killed when he runs into the street in front of a fire truck but immediately prior, he bumped into an old college friend, labor lawyer Robert Clayton Dean (Will Smith), and slipped the disc into his shopping bag without his knowledge. When the NSA discovers that Dean might have the video, Reynolds's team raids his house and plants surveillance devices, but the video does not turn up. The NSA then disseminates false evidence to implicate Dean of working with the mob family of Boss Paulie Pintero (Tom Sizemore) and seeing Rachel Banks (Lisa Bonet), an ex-girlfriend he had an affair with. The subterfuge destroys Dean's life: he is dismissed from his job, his bank accounts are frozen, and his wife Carla (Regina King) throws him out of the...