Haute trahison

One wonders how did this screen play got to be made into a thriller movie. The writers had no clue into the many holes they were creating in a story so predictable as this. At the same time, one has to question the studio as to why this movie was approved. The director George Cosmatos must have a more clout among the Hollywood bigwigs than we can think.

I never saw this film when it had a commercial run. It was recently shown on cable, and not having anything better to watch, decided to take a chance. Wow, it's that bad.

The film could have used a more likable hero than Bobby Bishop, blandly played by Charlie Sheen, who whispers his lines incomprehensibly. The pairing of Linda Hamilton with Sheen doesn't add anything to the movie. Donald Sutherland must have a lot to explain to his friends in how he accepted to appear in this picture.

This movie is so bad you'll be laughing yourself home. George P. Cosmatos is capable of making a good movie, look what he did with "Tombstone," and this one has all the right elements but falls flat on its face.

It *looks* good, has lots of mistrusting characters and turns of story to keep things going, and creates an atmosphere of deep intrigue and suspicion with bland Charlie Sheen at the center. But all these people running around so deathly serious never seem to stop and realize, "hey, this is really stupid what we're doing!"

A lot of the problems relate to the central assassin/hit man, a mute iron-eyed killing machine who runs around in a tan duster that makes him stand out like a sore thumb. He draws the line at shooting a defenseless puppy, but otherwise he kills everything that moves and is such a bad guy that he LITTERS!

It's easy to compare this movie to better efforts like "In the Line of Fire" or even the remake of "The Jackal." All feature a ruthless assassin constructing a secret weapon. "In the Line of Fire" had a plausible and realistic one, "The Jackal" was overkill, but this one is ridiculous. You have to see what the killer actually does at the end of the movie, it blows what little seriousness the movie had and turns it into a farce.

If you miss seeing this movie, don't worry about it.

This was the last film directed by George P. Cosmatos, a Greek born in Italy, who directed numerous Hollywood action movies and thrillers over the course of 24 years, including several with Greek settings. This one is set entirely in Washington, D.C., and it is a cracking conspiracy thriller about traitors inside the White House. The hero (who spends most of his time on the run from an assassin hired by the conspirators) is played by Charlie Sheen. Linda Hamilton plays a Washington political journalist with whom he is involved on and off, and they become co-fugitives. The dominant presence in this film, however, is that of Donald Sutherland, who acts circles round everyone else, as a security chief. Theodore Bikel has a bit part as a Russian scholar living in the USA who gets killed at the beginning of the story because he has discovered the traitors. Ben Gazzarra plays a character who stands around tables at the White House looking important and smug, but I did not understand until I looked at the credits on IMDb that he was meant to be the Vice President. The President is played by Sam Waterson, but he too is just a supporting character in the story. Gore Vidal has a fleeting bit part as a Congressman. The film contains an excess of action and not enough story. But it is very tense and 'thrilling' as a thriller should be, so it works within its genre. Charlie Sheen is very convincing as a young Special Assistant to the President who is constantly on the run because he has discovered the traitors who wish to assassinate the President. The assassin who keeps trying to kill him is played by Stephen Lang, who is absolutely terrifying, though why he wears a long white coat down to his ankles, thereby attracting a lot of attention to himself, is a mystery. (Aren't assassins supposed to be inconspicuous?) And how does he stow all of those guns under that flimsy coat? And how does he not get stopped by the police when he is shooting all those innocent bystanders in the streets like that? Oh, well, it's only a movie.

My Take: Routine political thriller with mediocre action scenes and predictable twists.

A rarely seen political thriller, which made a very poor box-office response, I managed to catch THE SHADOW CONSPIRACY on TV just now, and while I was glad that I satisfied my curiosity to see this rare film, I didn't exactly feel this film was all special. Considering the box-office response to it, SHADOW CONSPIRACY is not all quite as bad as critics and the public reacted to it, but still ain't very good to begin with and everything, from script to direction, is pretty predictable. Charlie Sheen plays the presidential assistant who finds himself caught up with assassins and chases (a lot of them) when he discovers a deadly conspiracy which lurks amongst the White House staff. After a professor is murdered, Sheen aids the help of ex-flame reporter Amanda Givens (Linda Hamilton) to uncover the traitor and unlock the conspiracy of the title.

But this script, written by Adi Hasak & Ric Gibbs, are pedestrian as they come, not much differing from other White House conspiracy thrillers as in ABSOLUTE POWER and MURDER AT 1600. Some considerable talents (Donald Sutherland, Ben Gazzara and Stephen Lang) try their best on a routine script, but rarely saves it from predictability of the script. Not to mention a ludicrous scene which involves a toy helicopter, which seems far too silly and out-of-place in this "serious" political thriller. THE SHADOW CONSPIRACY has its moments I'm sure, some of which are much to under-appreciated (director George Pan Cosmatos serves up some decent chase scenes), but none of which lifts this routine thriller of which there's not much payoff or surprises.

Rating: ** out of 5.

Bobby Bishop's role in the White House was never made clear, but when they needed him, they sent a helicopter, and he arrived in a conference room full of suits still wearing his sweaty Princeton sweatshirt. Once he cleaned up and put on his own suit, Bishop went before the press to clear up a public relations problem--after reminding a certain congressman what could happen if said congressman didn't help.

A secret meeting with Prof. Pochenko promised to reveal something not quite kosher in the White House. But a man with a gun wanted the information to stay secret. So Bishop spent the rest of the movie on the run and trying to uncover secrets with the help of Washington Herald reporter Amanda Givens. Meanwhile, someone was capable of monitoring pretty much every phone call that took place in the movie.

I like Charlie Sheen better as a womanizing jerk, but he was just fine here. Both Sheen characters know how to scheme and lie and otherwise be quite charming to get what they want. Donald Sutherland did a credible job as the White House Chief of Staff who didn't have faith in the President's ability. And Sam Waterston didn't exactly inspire confidence as the President. Linda Hamilton was good as Amanda.

This wasn't a great action thriller, but it was good nevertheless. Too violent for my taste (and there was a stern warning on the TV station I watched, even after the movie was cleaned up for TV), but I enjoyed the chases and the occasional comedy.