Shadow Conspiracy

MST3K fodder. It's so bad it's actually worth seeing just for that reason. There are some hilarious things in it, such as the mysterious device the bad guy is seen working on for the whole movie, that turns out to be this tiny helicopter that flutters around carrying and firing a machine gun without so much as a wobble, but is brought down by a bag of balloons (the kind they release at political conventions). Many other wonderful touches of that sort. Stars Charlie Sheen. There's one scene where he spends five minutes recording a conversation, only to drop the microcassette in the Potomac River by accident. If they'd cast Emilio Estevez in the part that never would've happened.

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.

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.

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.

Bobby Bishop (Sheen) is a close personal advisor to the president but gets out of his depth when shots are fired at him & he learns of a sinister shadow conspiracy within the highest government that is supposed to watch & protect the president.

It's up to Charlie Sheen as Bishop to uncover what is going on & why? Sheen was still a bankable enough star here & i liked 90's Sheen in movies such as the equally awesome & underrated "Terminal Velocity" & the Eastwood Cop Thriller "The Rookie" Sheen was decent back in the day. Here Sheen plays panicked well & he's constantly on the run & the film felt similar to Will Smith's Conspiracy Thriller "Enemy of the State" but that came out later than "Shadow" here. Amongst the cast is Terminator star Linda Hamilton as the local hard-nosed reporter that teams up with Sheen & the veteran movie legend Donald Sutherland as a hugh-up government boss & is supposed to be helping Sheen get to safety!!! Also ww get an unstoppable Assassin role for the scarily intense Stephen Lang (Don't Breathe, VFW) as he pursues Sheen across a rainy Washington DC. I love the 90's look & feel of this comforting Thriller & a decent music score only helps it. There's plenty of action packed scenes that keeps the movie moving constantly & is never boring.

Shadow Conspiracy is a 90's Thriller gem that is probably completely forgotten about today & probably barely made a dent at the box office on it's release way back in 1997 but i like it alot & think it's one entertaining ride. More exciting than it's given credit for.

Also this was director George P. Cosmatos last movie, he made the Cult Classic Stallone Thriller COBRA.