Fletchers Visionen

Mel Gibson is most sympathetic as conspiracy theorist Jerry Fletcher, who lives in a ultra-secure, booby trapped apartment where he publishes his newsletter critical of the government. Ironically, he loves government employee Alice Sutton(played by Julia Roberts) from afar. One day, their worlds collide when one of Jerry's theories seems to be true, as he becomes the target of assassination, and Alice helps him to go on the run from the unknown government forces. He thinks that Dr. Jonas(Patrick Stewart) will help him, but it turns out that was one conspiracy he didn't anticipate...

Entertaining thriller is well directed by Richard Donner, with a good pace and reasonably believable story, though it does go on a bit too long, and becomes a bit too convoluted, but otherwise this film works well, and some of Jerry's theories may not be so nutty anymore...

The thing that stands out for me in this movie is the wonderful (and underrated) performance given by Mel Gibson. His part calls for an uneasy balance between a paranoid psychotic and romantic leading man and he treds that fine line beautifully. Despite all his craziness, he is totally likeable and his relationship with the Julia Roberts character is wonderfully complex and believable. Julia Roberts also gives an excellent performance and the chemistry between the two leads is perfect.

All in all, I loved this film and didn't understand why it was so underrated by the critics.

When renting the Conspiracy Theory, I had a one and a half year old kid with me in the video store. While desperately trying to stop him from reaching for every accessible piece of candy, choosing a movie was really just a matter of finding an eye-catching box as fast as possible. The faces of Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts did the job, and I was not to be disappointed.

The story of an obviously mad taxi driver, Gibson, trying to get a well situated beautiful woman, Roberts, to share his conception of the American government as being just about based on far-reaching conspiracies is, though intriguing, hardly convincing. This lack of credibility in the story is however well compensated by the lead actors; if the incredible plot would actually unfold in real life, Gibson and Roberts would definitely be there. This movie is definitely worth watching, not for its story-line which tries, but fails, to surprise, but for the charming atmosphere around the main characters, peaking with their short visit to Jerry's (Gibson's) apartment. I award it seven pleasant and rather humorous stars!

I found this film really hard to focus on, there was Mel Gibson playing a paranoid crazy guy, being dragged off by government/non-government 'spooks' and having some sort of weird obsession with Julia Roberts. But as the film unfolded, and the storyline, a complex one, began to unravel it all started to make some kind of sense. My favorite part has to be the self destruction of his apartment, that was quite imaginative. Before I saw this i was expecting something along the lines of Lethal Weapon, being the same star, and same director. But it was so completely different from what I thought it would be and it actually ended up being a better film as a consequence. Mel Gibson played a completely different character than what we usually see, which worked to his benefit and Julia Roberts proved with this film, that she still had star power. Definitely worth a look.

Let me say immediately that I would recommend this film to almost anyone but the most literal-minded. This film will be different things to different people. It can be a macho thriller, a subtle romance, an ironic look at ourselves, or a combination of all these things. The great thing about this movie is not so much the plot, but the individual situations and scenes. What is meant to be portrayed as paranoid behaviour by Mel Gibson's character, Jerry Fletcher, becomes quite funny when the viewer recognizes his or her own self doing similar things, but in a context that is supposedly "normal." Jerry's having a padlock on his refrigerator and a combination lock on his coffee will bring a smile to the lips of anyone who has to deal with numerous computer "logons" and passwords to gain access to even the most mundane things in our computer-dominated workplaces. Likewise, the writers and director are spot on when they show poor paranoid Jerry going to separate mailboxes to post his various letters, while many of us here in the on-line world will routinely use pseudonyms, proxies, remailers, etc for the very same reason that Jerry takes his seemingly abnormal precautions, i.e., to avoid potentially prying eyes. So, who's paranoid? I thought this was very insightful. As for overt humour, perhaps my guard was down, but I laughed until tears came to my eyes when Jerry tossed off joke about a man who had only three minutes to live. Mel Gibson's delivery of the punch line was perfect. As for pathos and those human moments, scenes in which Jerry would gladly die for just a brushing kiss from his worshipped Julia Roberts might bring back memories of anyone's naive, tender years and momentarily make your heart ache. And a scene in which Jerry is unable to explain why he compulsively buys copies of the same book over and over again is very poignant, indeed. Mel Gibson put a lot of energy into what was obviously a demanding role and, as usual, Julia Roberts lights up the screen in every scene she's in. The film might be a fantasy, but it's the sort of fantasy many of us can appreciate.