Special Assistant to the President Bobby Bishop (Charlie Sheen) is a dedicated member of The President's staff (Sam Waterston) during a time where the public and several members of the inner circle such as Chief of Staff Jacob Conrad (Donald Sutherland) are wary of the proposed defense cuts which Bobby attempts to spin to the public. As Bobby is approached by Professor Yuri Pochenko (Theodore Bikel) who has claims of a shadow government operating within the highest echelons of political power, an assassin (Stephen Lang) kills Pochenko and soon sets his sights on Bobby sending him on the run with help from journalist Amanda Givens (Linda Hamilton) to unravel what's going on and who's behind it.
Shadow Conspiracy is a 1997 political thriller that marked the final film of George P. Cosmatos and one of the last films to be distributed by Disney based company Cinergi Pictures prior to going defunct in 1998. The movie was dumped into the minimum number of theaters to qualify for a "wide release" opening in 16th place behind several holdovers and the opening of the special edition of Star Wars. Critical reception was overwhelmingly negative with many panning the thin characterizations, plot holes, and logical gaffes. With its lead in Charlie Sheen and a silly plot that's held together with duct tape and hope, one could be forgiven for thinking this was a lost script for Hot Shots 3 that someone accidently played straight.
There's very little substance to our characters who never evolve beyond archetypes (some don't even have names like The President or The Agent) and all the actors are more like cogs in a barely functioning machine than proper characters. While political action thrillers have a storied history in film such as The 39 Steps or Three Days of the Condor, Shadow Conspiracy doesn't have the style, character, or thrills of those films especially since it plays at a surprisingly slack pace. While the key appeal of this type of film is in watching the hero put the pieces together, Bobby doesn't so much "put them together" as much as he does stumble around and convenient kick them in the right spot making him one of the most comedically inept protagonists I can recall of recent memory. But it's not like Bobby's the only inept and stupid character on display as we have Stephen Lang's The Agent who has the subtlety of Schwarzenegger's The Terminator and somehow is not seen or described by anyone including the police despite firing guns in broad daylight or hanging off the tops of jeeps. This culminates in an absolute howler of a climax that makes you question: "someone paid $600,000 for this screenplay and made it!?"
Shadow Conspiracy is one of the dumbest movies ever made and is baffling how a mainstream studio film with decent sized names can hold together worse than some direct-to-video action films.
Shadow Conspiracy is a 1997 political thriller that marked the final film of George P. Cosmatos and one of the last films to be distributed by Disney based company Cinergi Pictures prior to going defunct in 1998. The movie was dumped into the minimum number of theaters to qualify for a "wide release" opening in 16th place behind several holdovers and the opening of the special edition of Star Wars. Critical reception was overwhelmingly negative with many panning the thin characterizations, plot holes, and logical gaffes. With its lead in Charlie Sheen and a silly plot that's held together with duct tape and hope, one could be forgiven for thinking this was a lost script for Hot Shots 3 that someone accidently played straight.
There's very little substance to our characters who never evolve beyond archetypes (some don't even have names like The President or The Agent) and all the actors are more like cogs in a barely functioning machine than proper characters. While political action thrillers have a storied history in film such as The 39 Steps or Three Days of the Condor, Shadow Conspiracy doesn't have the style, character, or thrills of those films especially since it plays at a surprisingly slack pace. While the key appeal of this type of film is in watching the hero put the pieces together, Bobby doesn't so much "put them together" as much as he does stumble around and convenient kick them in the right spot making him one of the most comedically inept protagonists I can recall of recent memory. But it's not like Bobby's the only inept and stupid character on display as we have Stephen Lang's The Agent who has the subtlety of Schwarzenegger's The Terminator and somehow is not seen or described by anyone including the police despite firing guns in broad daylight or hanging off the tops of jeeps. This culminates in an absolute howler of a climax that makes you question: "someone paid $600,000 for this screenplay and made it!?"
Shadow Conspiracy is one of the dumbest movies ever made and is baffling how a mainstream studio film with decent sized names can hold together worse than some direct-to-video action films.