Conspiracy (2008) Reviews

• Bad remake

  mikb3332009-03-12

  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.

• Think Road House meets Billy Jack...but not in a good way

  orthodoxhedonist2008-03-09

  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.

• I enjoyed it ... there, I said it!

  terence_laoshi-12008-05-08

  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.

• Unconvincing and boring

  aventer-12008-03-13

  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.

• Seagalesque

  xnrat2008-08-08

  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.