CONSPIRACY THEORY (PG-13)
Director: Richard Donner
Stars: Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, Patrick Stewart, Cylk Cozart
Richard Donner's gripping new thriller further
exploits the fascination with paranoid theories,
high-level conspiracy and government cover ups that
has been made popular through television series like
The X Files, and its ilk. Conspiracy Theory begins
slowly and awkwardly, but it soon hurtles along at a
cracking pace that overcomes the more far- fetched
nature of Brian Helgeland's tense screenplay.
Helgeland makes numerous references to some of
the other famous paranoid thrillers, such as The
Manchurian Candidate, in this deftly plotted exercise
in terror.
The central character of this gripping psychological
thriller is Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson), a New York
cabbie with a mysterious past, who espouses
profound theories concerning government cover-ups
and conspiracies. Jerry has bizarre theories
concerning everything from presidential assassinations
to the more sinister possibilities of supermarket
bar-codes. He has a sceptical confidante in Justice
Department attorney Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts),
who soon becomes his ally when mysterious assassins
seem to want Fletcher dead. The pair are caught up in
a real life conspiracy more bizarre and deadly than
anything conjured up by Fletcher's feverish paranoia.
On the run and off-balance, Fletcher and Sutton are
unsure of who to turn to for help as nobody is who
they claim to be.
Largely cast against type, Star Trek's Patrick Stewart
establishes a genuinely malevolent presence as Dr
Jonas, the sinister CIA psychiatrist whose loyalties are
uncertain. In some of his earliest scenes, Stewart
bears a disturbing resemblance to Laurence Olivier's
Nazi dentist in Marathon Man. Gibson is quite good
here as the conspiracy obsessed Fletcher, a more
vulnerable and complex hero than he normally plays,
and his performance shows that he is capable of more
than the slightly lunatic action hero. Roberts has
re-invented herself as an action heroine, with a role
that seems similar to the one she played in The Pelican Brief.
This cleverly plotted, suspenseful and compelling
thriller is driven by a pervasive and unsettling
atmosphere of paranoia. Conspiracy Theory also
shows that director Donner is capable of more
subtlety than displayed in the violent and pacy Lethal
Weapon series. He further demonstrates that he can
deftly handle knuckle-biting suspense as well as
mindless mayhem, car chases and pyrotechnics. A
scene in which Gibson is bound to a wheelchair and
interrogated is genuinely nightmarish, and made even
more unsettling with some razor sharp editing.