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Conspiracy (2008) More at IMDbPro »

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41 reviews in total

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49 out of 71 people found the following review useful:
waste of time, 18 March 2008

Author: pureskills2 from United Kingdom

this film was one of the biggest wastes of time ever. The characters were stone cold val kilmer especially. the plot was rubbish the acting was quite rubbish all the way through. the production looks good but the script and acting was some of the worst i have seen.

The story itself had a bit of potential but the follow though just didn't seem 2 happen. It seemed like the Americans pretending they want to save the native Americans. The rednecks characters were so stereotypical for small town America but they just made them the stupidest stereotypes so you would not even believe them. I suggest never seeing this film

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37 out of 59 people found the following review useful:
Think Road House meets Billy Jack...but not in a good way, 9 March 2008

Author: Brian Soto from San Francisco, United States

This was pretty abysmal, and all things considered, I probably should have known better when it said written and directed by Adam Marcus. Except that I had no idea who Adam Marcus was. Given his track record, justifiably so. The depressing part isn't so much the plot (which was written by your little brother in crayons), as much as it was watching Val Kilmer sink to new lows in his otherwise mostly storied career. When I tried to rationalize why Val Kilmer would stoop to the level of this ostensibly lost A-Team episode script directed by appointed directors like Marcus, all I could come up with would be his contempt for the real world equivalent to the radical right-wing Minutemen-like goons littering this pseudo-entertaining steaming pile of straight-to-vid. As it turns out, I was at least partially right, Kilmer did this movie for personal/political reasons (according to the related trivia).

I would write a summary, except I'm loath to spending more than the 90 minutes I already wasted watching it. You've seen it before, except this time it isn't Steven Seagal fighting for the rights of Native Americans, or Billy Jack fighting for the hippie commune, it's Val Kilmer fighting against a shoestring budget, and implied Halliburton employees as laughably stereotypical rednecks for the sake of immigrant rights and liberal ideology. A great cause, but ill-conceived and poorly executed here.

But don't take my word for it, no really. I want someone else to have to endure what I did.

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24 out of 36 people found the following review useful:
Unconvincing and boring, 13 March 2008

Author: Jason VanMason from usa

Basic plot: a colorful person finds himself presented with a conspiracy involving the disappearance of a friend. Been done many times and can be very entertaining. But this is not "Bad Day at Black Rock"! First of all, Kilmer is clearly too old to play a crack marine. And he is seriously overweight and stiff. He comes across as grumpy rather than sinister. The setting is just as unconvincing: Supposedly this is a new town being built in the middle of nowhere using cheap Mexican labor. Yet many of the buildings are wild west era in style. Its obviously a generic western movie set, possibly located on Kilmer's own ranch. A 19th century "Dance Hall" is reached by a dirt street with a speed limit sign stuck in the earth, yet its flat as an airport runway. And its not a revitalized ghost town either. Everything is new, as though they just finished shooting an episode of Bonanza. Only the horse trough is missing. The small cast is comprised of stock characters: a young snotty cop who seems to be the entire police department, a beautiful girl running a dollar store with a precious little daughter, naturally terrified of telling the truth. She runs a lending library...with books! No vcrs, no dvds in this town although they have cable TV. Who thinks this stuff up? You are expected to suspend disbelief for dramas but when one anachronism is piled upon another goof on top of a plot hole, its difficult to take the story seriously. And the predictable story grinds on and on like a celluloid glacier. Go to the loo or make coffee, you wont miss anything. I hope this isn't an indication of the direction Kilmers career is taking as he is capable of much better. If you like daffy plots, watch a Steven Segal movie: at least they are entertaining.

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16 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
Seagalesque, 8 August 2008

Author: kaeng from Germany

This movie sucked. I mean... wow. I surely didn't expect a masterpiece. But the actual level of suckitude left me speechless and almost breathless, as if my body was trying to rescue itself into sweet unconsciousness. It reminded me, and heavily at that, of Steven Seagal. But not the Seagal of "Under Siege" or "On Deadly Ground", who we all came to love. No, I mean the Steven Seagal who brought us straight-to-video suckfests like "Black Dawn".

Val Kilmer, like Seagal, is just a blimp, floating through the foggy remains of a story, while it rains wooden puppets. Who of course are the other actors in my weird little analogy.

Every little thing in this movie is bad and sucks in ways where there are no more words to articulate a warning. So let me just say this: DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE! Thank you for your attention.

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9 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
I enjoyed it ... there, I said it!, 8 May 2008

Author: terence_laoshi-1 from China

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I quite enjoyed the film. There, I've said it. But having said that, let me say this ... it's no classic and Val Kilmer needn't dust off his dinner jacket for award ceremonies.

I'm prepared to add a little balance to the scathing comments that precede me and to say: this is not as bad as many people are saying.

Kilmer's performance is precisely what he would have been aiming for, and that was a reasonable choice. The supporting actors were sufficient, unless you're looking for an academy nominee (and you won't get any guarantees of that, anyway). The plot is predictable, but this is Hollywood after all and most movie-goers aren't looking for 90 minutes of cerebral exercise.

Almost all of the comments have cited the obvious shortcomings. It appears to be a relatively low-budget production and, if that is the case, it's a pretty reasonable effort, in my opinion. I can overlook the shallow performances of many of the supporting cast and the disorganized and disoriented extras.

Some comments are quite unfair, in my opinion, and only show that key plot points have been missed. This is quite a few years after Iraq 1. I suspect that some of the viewers think it's Iraq 2. Kilmer's weight and age, for example, are not a simple error of judgment by the Director and casting agent; rather, it's a simple error in the viewing of the movie.

I'm surprised that few people have noticed the very obvious Halliburton message. This is my major gripe. I have no interest in defending the indefensible, but the message delivery is quite infantile. It reached it's zenith with the overly-long speech by the main female character. She outlines how Halliburton ... sorry, Hallicorp or Halco or whatever it's called ... profits from supplying the weaponry to blow up foreign countries, then wins the contracts to build them again, ultimately never spending their ill-gotten gain in America (which is a curious extension of a moral point) ... and on and on it went. It was one of the most tedious and embarrassing 'worthy' speeches I've heard in a movie (and I support the basic concerns in the message). It was a parody of itself and I watched it three times to see if there was a glimmer of embarrassment in the actor's eyes. How do they do it? Method, I guess.

Aspects of the plot are quite a stretch. I can't see Dastardly Dick Cheney retiring to a dusty little town in the middle of nowhere to build an old-west replica as a base from which to live out his power-crazed fantasies. He already has a much better and more comfortable location for that.

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6 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
actually very good, 25 January 2009

Author: biffertron from Leeds, UK

oh dear, it seems that quite a few gung ho Americans don't like films that point out the way big companies thrive on war and make lots of money out of it by supplying the goods to make war possible and then make even more money by rebuilding the mess they made.

Don't let their innate bias put you off watching this film as it is a actually pretty good (apart from the ending 5 minutes which looked suspiciously like the studio waded in and made the director make a Segal / Van Damme type over the top conclusion). We actually rented the film because we thought it would be good stupid fun like a Segal film with lots of Saturday night 'whizzbangpoppery' but there is a lot more to it than that - I was starting to say that it reminded me a fair bit of a classic Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western when lo and behold! - turns out the name of the town is Lago - the same name as in High Plains Drifter!! Someone with enough intelligence and respect (writer or Director?) to sneakily name check a reference has got much more going on than the people who have dismissed the film cos they don't like the politics.

So my advice is definitely worth renting - if you are a fan of thoughtful action films and like those classic Clint westerns cos this is a modern cousin of them. Enjoy

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5 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Well, at least people were cut up, 22 March 2008

Author: pageiv from Flint, MI

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I never heard of this movie, and I am a big movie buff, until I saw a pop-up ad of all things. Needless to say they spared promotion money to pay Kilmer his paycheck.

First the good: There was lots of killing, which some was rather unique and bloody. There was a decent backstory in Iraq that could've been a movie itself. Then there was a folksy Western Town that I'd love to spend some time in.

Then the Bad: Okay, Hollywood is good at taking "ripped from the headlines" and making that into a "Law and Order" or cheesy movie, well here you get the movie. The bad guy is the head of a Halliburton type company, he hates Mexicans and likes paying them less than a "decent" wage. Though I don't know why the Mexicans just don't move on to another company.

Then there is a pitiful diatribe about Halliburton starting a war, to sell the Army guns, then making money to rebuild Iraq, to start a war with Mexico to repeat. If not for this absolutely retarded scene I'd give it 8/10.

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8 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
Bringing Hell to God's Land, 11 May 2008

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

During the operation Storm in Desert in Iraq, the tough Marine Sergeant of Special Operations MacPherson (Val Kilmer) and his great pal and family man, the Mexican Corporal Miguel Silva (Greg Serano), are seriously wounded and retired. Later, the veteran and traumatized marine is insistently invited by Miguel to visit him in his lands in New Lago, a location nearby the border with Mexico. When MacPherson arrives in the town, he does not find his friend and he gets no information from the locals about Miguel. Sooner he realizes that the CEO of Halicorp (a branch of Halliburton?) and vigilante, Rhodes (Gary Cole), is buying cheap lands, giving infrastructure, constructing buildings, housing and facilities using slave labor from the needy Mexicans and making lots of money. When MacPherson finds that his family and friend have been executed by Rhodes, he promises to bring hell to God's land.

The first point that calls the attention in "Conspiracy" is the weight of Val Kilmer, almost obese; the former handsome actor is impressively fat. The plot about "friend that visits a missing friend and seeks revenge" has no originality, and a couple of days ago I saw "Missionary Man" that has a very similar story. The only difference is the shallow political connotation and speech in the characters and situations. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Bad remake, 12 March 2009

Author: mikb333 from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Extremely bad remake of "Bad Day at Black Rock" starring Spencer Tracey.

If you liked this film I'd watch that. It's how a film like this can be done incredibly well.

Kilmer does his best I guess, but a remake of a great film deserves a better kind of care from the producers.

I don't know if this is part of the remake fad still going on or Val's slow return after the makeover but I don't rate this as even a blip on the film radar, I mean I like the idea but where was the tension, where was the intensity, everyone played a role and unfortunately that is all they did.

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3 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Absolute Garbage, A Contrived Insult To It's Audience!, 27 May 2009

Author: billfromellerslie from United States

I am so glad that I rented Conspiracy before buying it!

It was completely surprising to find out exactly how much Val Kilmer was emotionally invested in this movie! Judging by his bloated appearance and sleepwalking performance, I assumed he was only in it for the money and was bored or that he was deliberately trying to sabotage a film he felt was beneath him!

In all four of the Val Kilmer movies I've seen lately (Conspiracy, Moscow Zero, Felon, and Dead Man's Bounty where he plays a corpse) he appears to be clinically depressed! I don't know what Val needs more, Weight Watchers or Lithium!

Of the whole wooden cast only Gary Cole seems to be having any fun.

Everything they say about the silly leftist slant of Conspiracy is true. I don't know any left-wingers that even watch any straight-to-video action movies. The only reason I can even conceive of this being made is as a Trojan Horse to get into living rooms and spit in the face of the people whom the filmmakers disagree.

This is one big political screed that should be ignored as much as possible.

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