Charity's Place.com

SHADOW CONSPIRACY

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: language, violence, thematic elements

Rated:

A good thriller catches your attention from the very beginning and never loses it throughout the two hours that follow. In this respect, Shadow Conspiracy is a good thriller. I don't know when I have been more on the edge of my seat, my stomach tied up in knots, wondering if the good guys would make it out alive. With an excellent cast and reasonable plot, it's an intense and complicated intrigue that will leave you breathless.

One of the more powerful men in the government due to his personal advise to the President, Bobby Bishop (Charlie Sheen) has the respect and admiration of all of his colleagues. Brought to the White House to prevent the President (Sam Waterston) from making a press release that will send the country into a state of panic due to its budget cuts, Bobby manages to smooth things over between the President and his Chief of Staff, Jacob Conrad (Donald Sutherland). Blackmailing an opposing senator into supporting his political release intended to sooth a rabid press, Bobby considers it a job well done and takes the rest of the day off. He is approached in the street by a European contact, Prof. Yuri Pochenko (Theodore Bikel) who manages to confide only that his associates have been murdered and there is a high-profile threat within the government, before he is shot and killed by a sniper on a nearby rooftop.

Involved in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with this ruthless killer, Bobby barely manages to make it out alive. He is afraid to return to the White House after his attempts to contact Conrad only turn into a bloodbath. Enlisting the assistance of his former lover and current journalist, Amanda Givens (Linda Hamilton), Bobby becomes embroiled in a frantic countdown against time as he attempts to unearth the truth behind the assassinations. It is not so much a brainy kind of film as one that relies on shock value through beautifully executed assassination and chase scenes. I liked the characters and how they were written. I had my suspicions as to how it would end, and was right, but that didn't decrease my enjoyment any.

The rating comes from violence and profane language. There are a half dozen uses each of the f-word, Jesus' name taken in vain, GD, and the slang term pr*ck. There's no sexual content except for a couple mild references to past love affairs. In the opening scene, an assassin storms into a country house and kills everyone there with an automatic rifle, with bloody results. He slaughters other people in the street. Bullet holes appear in people's heads. A gunfight erupts between the Secret Service an invaders, resulting in a high body count. None of it was particularly gruesome. I have always liked the actors involved in this project, and it was fun to see them play such definitive characters. Waterston's president is a charming if repressed individual that you get the sense is frustrated with the restraint his panel holds over him. Sheen is a calculating and likable hero, but it was really Donald Sutherland that won me over with his quiet performance.

The basic nuances of the plot have been done since with more gusto. Donald's son Kiefer even contributed recently to the genre with The Sentinel. America loves her country and her government, and a planned assassination or two for our heroes to thwart never gets old. It really is a pity the f-word taints some of the dialogue, because without it, Shadow Conspiracy would have become one of my most favored thriller recommendations. Sometimes you don't want a movie with a carefully scoped plot. Sometimes you just want to sit back on the couch and spend two hours in terror for someone's life. In that sense, this film more than delivers.