This week, Disney+ introduced the mildly anticipated 'Star' section of content to it's streaming service, coming as a nice addition to people like me who have a free 6 month subscription until May this year and (at time of writing) don't have small children. Star certainly brings with it a whole deluge of "adult orientated" content and certainly makes Disney+ a much more appealing prospect as a streaming subscription than it was previous, but it comes as more of a token bonus to people who already subscribe for the Disney / Marvel / Star Wars content rather than a standout shot at it being a direct competitor to Amazon Prime and Netflix... or at least in my opinion... I took an hour or so to trawl through the list of movies the other week before it was introduced and discovered that only one on my list to work through that has found itself coming over as part of the migration is Shadow Conspiracy - an "explosive thriller" from 1997 staring Charlie Sheen.
Senator Bobby Bishop (Charlie Sheen) is Special Advisor to The President (Sam Waterston) and best pals with White House Chief of Staff; Jacob Conrad (Donald Sutherland) and after quashing a PR disaster for the President, finds himself on an assassins hit list shortly after his friend Dr Yuri Pochenko (Theodore Bikel) is assassinated right in front of him. Effectively cut off from the White House, after suspicion that someone inside may be directing the would-be assassins, Bobby suspects that the operation of a shadow government inside the White House may be at work. After accidentally meeting up with Political Journalist Amanda Givens (Linda Hamilton) who ran the original story on a shadow government some years ago, the pair are targeted again by the same assassin, narrowly escaping from the Newspaper Office. Amanda reveals that Dr Pochenko was the main source for her story and after a covert meeting with Jacob, Bobby vows not to return to the White House until they have ratted out the traitor. Meanwhile evidence begins to mount up that Bobby has gone rogue, and despite being outlawed he manages to gain access to the White House and his office. Bobby discovers that Jacob was responsible for the execution of Dr Pochenko and has been keeping Bobby as well as other members of the Senate under surveillance. Believing Jacob to be at the head of the shadow government, Bobby and Amanda narrowly escape the White House and flush Jacob out into a meeting with his cohorts who float the idea that they need to proceed with the assassination of... THE PRESIDENT (of course!) the following day. Fathoming that the assassin will strike at a convention dinner, Bobby and Amanda travel to the convention hall and by working together, Bobby manages to get inside and save the President before the Assassin can strike the final shot with his motorised machine gun mounted toy helicopter... In the background a defeated Jacob then pulls the trigger on himself and the conspiracy is over.
I am not the worlds biggest Charlie Sheen fan, although admittedly have only ever watched him in a few films / TV shows, and I always get a negative.. aura... from him for want a better word. But here I felt he did a real good job. He was obviously cast and written to be the All American Hero and despite being a Senator and Politician manages to avoid gun fire like Rambo, dive through glass windows, fall off rooftops and survive, he is practically invincible and, whilst obviously paramount to the plot, did get a little bit unbelievable as the film developed. If more about his history before becoming a Senator was suggested at; if he was like ex-Army or something then that would have carried some weight, but there's none of that so the expectation that he is like, Superman, or something and manages to avoid dying on multiple occasions, it got far fetched.
The above point notwithstanding, Charlie Sheen, although maybe a little stereotypical in places did a really good job as the lead, and was believable and convincing. How on earth he will go on to be awful in things like the equally awful Two and Half Men... ugh... is baffling. Don't do drugs Kids. Linda Hamilton and Donald Sutherland both put in really good performances too, and Stephen Lang as the Assassin was brilliant; never said a word the whole movie but his facial expressions and body language did enough to express how cold, calculating and menacing he was, he was really good.
I can't find any complaints either really with the cinematography, the soundtrack, the pacing, everything was put together competently to drive the plot, the audio mixing was a little off in parts; I sometimes found it difficult to fully understand what Jacob (Donald Sutherland) was saying but I don't know if that was part of his character or an issue with the mixing... the only critical point I have is that, for the most part it was a largely predictable, formulaic affair and I wouldn't go as far as to call it an "explosive thriller" by any means, but it did have it's action set pieces that were engaging and didn't feel like it lagged or padded out in any periods, but "explosive"? Not entirely. And unfortunately, the most serious error with the foundation of the movie is that these types of thriller films have been done a million times before, even by 1997: somebody wants to assassinate the President and take over the country. Fair play to the movie for holding up that final revelation until near the end but it was predictable and worn out. But hey, what do I know? There will be countless movies that follow the same formula in the years after, so maybe the movie going public are just really into these things?
I went into this fully expecting it to be either boring, or so fantastically far fetched and unbelievable that it would be funny. And it was neither of those things. I'm not a prolific Thriller watcher by any definition but I've seen my fair few and while this movie didn't really bring anything new to the table that you wouldn't find in any other film, it did get right and get correct everything it needed to, and them some, in order to produce and complete a finished piece of cinema that could be roundly appreciated. I'm not sure why it faired so badly with critics? I tend not to check out reviews beforehand so I can form my own opinion. Perhaps they reached the same conclusions as me? That it was predictable, stale, and formulaic? Which is fine, but I wouldn't go as far as to call it a bad movie, not by any means. I am teetering on the very edges of a 4 out of 5 for this, but if I'm being honest with myself, I didn't find it as enjoyable as Race to Witch Mountain which so far is my first and only 4, so it just narrowly misses the mark and lands itself a 3 out of 5. Worth watching though, definitely.
