Conspiracy Theory (film)
Encyclopedia
Conspiracy Theory is a 1997 American action
thriller film directed by Richard Donner
.
The original screenplay
by Brian Helgeland
centers on an eccentric taxi
driver (Mel Gibson
) who believes many world events are triggered by government conspiracies
, and the U.S. Justice Department attorney (Julia Roberts
) who becomes involved in his life.
The movie was a financial success, but critical reviews were mixed.
), an obsessive–compulsive New York City
taxi driver who lectures his passengers on various conspiracy theories
, visits his friend Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts
), who works for the U.S. Attorney, at the Justice Department
. She is trying to solve her father's murder. Jerry tells her that NASA
is trying to kill the President using a secret weapon on the Space Shuttle
that can trigger earthquakes.
Jerry identifies some men on the street as CIA, follows them into a building, and is captured by them. He wakes up in a mental hospital bound to a wheelchair. A doctor (Patrick Stewart
) tapes his eyes open, injects him with a drug (LSD
), and interrogates him using torture. As the LSD kicks in Jerry remembers many previous sessions, which he sees as terrifying cartoons. Jerry escapes, still bound to the wheelchair. He shuts himself in a laundry truck, escaping the premises. Jerry goes to Alice's office again and grabs a guard's gun, collapsing in Alice's arms.
Alice visits Jerry in the hospital. Handcuffed to the bed and forced to enter a drug-induced sleep, he pleads with her to switch his chart with that of a criminal in the next bed or he will be dead by morning. In the morning, when Alice visits again, the criminal is dead, as he has suffered a mysterious heart attack during the night. The CIA, FBI
and other agencies are there. She meets a mysterious CIA psychiatrist
, Dr. Jonas. Meanwhile Jerry fakes a heart attack and escapes again, dropping himself down a linen chute. Jerry dresses up as another doctor and escapes the building.
Jonas quizzes Alice over lunch; she explains that Jerry saved her from muggers once, so she tolerates him. In Jerry's hospital room she finds a copy of The Catcher in the Rye
. As she discusses it with an FBI officer named Lowry, the CIA come and confiscate all of Jerry's personal items. Lowry offers to share info with her but she declines.
The CIA cannot find Jerry. Alice goes to her car, and finds Jerry hiding in it. She stops the car and speaks with Lowry who is tailing them, and then they go to Jerry's apartment where he tells her about his conspiracy theories and his newsletter. He has dozens of copies of Catcher - feels compelled to buy it, but doesn't know why. They are interrupted when Jerry's alarm goes off, signaling the entry of a CIA SWAT
team. Jerry sets everything on fire and they leave by his secret trapdoor exit. In the room below, there is a large mural on the wall, which features both Alice and the triple smokestacks of a factory near the mental institution.
The pair go to Alice's apartment and he reveals he's been watching her through her window. She kicks him out. Outside, Jerry confronts Lowry and his partner staking out her place, and he warns them not to hurt her. He goes to a book store and buys a copy of Catcher. The CIA detects his purchase, and sends agents to catch him. Jerry sees their black helicopter
s and men rappelling down and goes into a theater. He yells "there's a bomb under my chair" and manages to escape during the resulting panic.
The next morning, Alice has been calling each person who gets the newsletter, and they all have all died that night except one. Jerry uses a ruse to get her out of the office, and then attaches cables from the CIA vehicle following her to a vendor's cart. On a bus they discuss more of his theories. In a subway station where one Herriman drowned in another conspiracy, she agrees to check the autopsy. He says he loves her and she rejects him.
Alice goes to see the last surviving person on the subscription list, and it is Jonas. He explains that Jerry was an MK-ULTRA
subject but the project was terminated - except for his research. Jonas shows her a photo of her father taken from Jerry's locker, and claims that Jerry went out of control and killed her father. She is crushed.
Jerry sends Alice a pizza and says to meet him. Jonas gets her to agree to a homing device in the pizza box and Jerry drives her with the box across the Queensboro bridge. He has made previous arrangements that enable him to ditch the agents following them, leaving the homing device behind. As he drives her to her father's private horse stables, Jerry tells her that he can almost remember what happened and is taking her to where "the music is playing." Alice turns on her mobile phone so they can still track her. At the stables Jerry remembers that he was sent to kill her father (a judge who was about to expose Jonas' operation) but found he couldn't kill him. Instead they became friends and Jerry promised to watch over Alice before the judge was killed by another assassin. She admits she switched the charts in the hospital. The CIA arrive and capture Jerry. Jonas gloats but Jerry says, "you've never seen her run." Alice outruns the men; a sniper misses her, killing the last guy chasing her, and she escapes.
Jonas tortures Jerry again. Meanwhile, Alice leads the FBI men (who are not actually FBI but from a "secret agency that watches the other agencies") to Jonas' office, but it has been entirely dismantled. Declining Lowry's help, Alice starts searching for Jerry. She realizes that a detail of Jerry's large mural is near a mental hospital and goes there. She bribes an attendant to show her an unused wing, breaks in through locked doors, and finds Jerry after hearing him singing through the ventilation ducts. As Jonas catches them, Lowry arrives with his men and attacks Jonas's men. Jerry attempts to drown Jonas but is shot several times. In retaliation, Alice shoots Jonas dead. Alice tells Jerry she loves him as he is taken away in an ambulance.
Some time later, Alice visits Jerry's grave, leaving his union pin upon it, before returning to horse riding. As she rides away, Jerry, Lowry and Flip watching her. Jerry is not allowed to contact her until they are sure they have rounded up all of Jonas' other subjects. He secretly lets her know he is still alive by placing his union pin on her horse's saddle and the film ends.
release of the film, director Richard Donner reveals these scenes were ad-libbed by Mel Gibson. The extras
acting as passengers were not told what Gibson was going to say because Donner wanted their reactions to be as spontaneous and realistic as possible.
The film was shot on location in and around New York City. Sites included Times Square
, Union Square
, Greenwich Village
, the Queensboro Bridge
, Roosevelt Island
, and the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York
.
The soundtrack
includes "Just Maintain" by Xzibit
, "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
" by The Police, and two renditions of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You
", one by Frankie Valli
and the other by Lauryn Hill
.
, Janet Maslin
said, "The only sneaky scheme at work here is the one that inflates a hollow plot to fill 2¼ hours while banishing skepticism with endless close-ups of big, beautiful movie-star eyes . . . Gibson, delivering one of the hearty, dynamic star turns that have made him the Peter Pan
of the blockbuster set, makes Jerry much more boyishly likable than he deserves to be. The man who talks to himself and mails long, delusional screeds to strangers is not usually the dreamboat type . . . After the story enjoys creating real intrigue . . . it becomes tied up in knots. As with too many high-concept escapades, Conspiracy Theory tacks on a final half-hour of hasty explanations and mock-sincere emotion. The last scene is an outright insult to anyone who took the movie seriously at its start."
Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly
graded the film B- and commented, "Richard Donner . . . switches the movie from a really interesting, jittery, literate, and witty tone poem about justified contemporary paranoia
(and the creatively unhinged dark side of New York City) to an overloaded, meandering iteration of a Lethal Weapon
project that bears the not-so-secret stamp of audience testing and tinkering."
In the San Francisco Chronicle
, Mick LaSalle
stated, "If I were paranoid I might suspect a conspiracy at work in the promoting of this movie - to suck in audiences with a catchy hook and then give them something much more clumsy and pedestrian . . . Conspiracy Theory can be enjoyed once one gives up hope of its becoming a thinking person's thriller and accepts it as just another diversion . . . When all else fails, there are still the stars to look at - Roberts, who actually manages to do some fine acting, and Gibson, whose likability must be a sturdy thing indeed."
Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
observed the film "cries out to be a small film - a quixotic little indie production
where the daffy dialogue and weird characters could weave their coils of paranoia into great offbeat humor. Unfortunately, the parts of the movie that are truly good are buried beneath the deadening layers of thriller cliches and an unconvincing love story . . . If the movie had stayed at ground level - had been a real story about real people - it might have been a lot better, and funnier. All of the energy is in the basic material, and none of it is in a romance that is grafted on like an unneeded limb or superfluous organ."
In Rolling Stone
, Peter Travers
said, "The strong impact that Gibson makes as damaged goods is diluted by selling Jerry as cute and redeemable. Instead of a scalding brew of mirth and malice, served black, Donner settles up a tepid latte
, decaf
. What a shame - Conspiracy Theory could have been a contender."
Todd McCarthy of Variety
called the film "a sporadically amusing but listless thriller that wears its humorous, romantic and political components like mismatched articles of clothing . . . This is a film in which all things . . . are treated lightly, even glibly . . . One can readily sympathize with . . . the director's desire to inject the picture with as much humor as possible. But he tries to have it every which way in the end, and the conflicting moods and intentions never mesh comfortably."
On the film review website Rotten Tomatoes
, the film only obtained 48% positive reviews among the 40 reviewers counted by the website in the "T-metric" system.
In his 2003 book A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America
, political scientist Michael Barkun
notes that a vast popular audience has been introduced by the film to the notion that the U.S. government is controlled by a secret team
in black helicopter
s — a view once confined to the radical right
.
as the number 1 film. The film eventually grossed $75,982,834 in the U.S. and $61,000,000 in foreign markets for a total worldwide gross of $136,982,834. This final gross qualified Conspiracy Theory as the 19th highest grossing film in the U.S. in 1997.
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
thriller film directed by Richard Donner
Richard Donner
Richard Donner is an American film director, film producer, and comic book writer.The production company The Donners' Company is owned by Donner and his wife, producer Lauren Shuler Donner. After directing the horror film The Omen, Donner became famous for the hailed creation of the first modern...
.
The original screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
by Brian Helgeland
Brian Helgeland
Brian Thomas Helgeland is an American screenwriter, film producer and director. He is most known for writing the screenplays for L.A...
centers on an eccentric taxi
Taxicab
A taxicab, also taxi or cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice...
driver (Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
) who believes many world events are triggered by government conspiracies
Shadow government (conspiracy)
The term shadow government besides its party political meaning can also refer to what is sometimes called "the secret government" or "the invisible government" , an idea based on the notion that real and actual political power does not reside with publicly elected representatives but with private...
, and the U.S. Justice Department attorney (Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts
Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...
) who becomes involved in his life.
The movie was a financial success, but critical reviews were mixed.
Plot
Jerry Fletcher (Mel GibsonMel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
), an obsessive–compulsive New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
taxi driver who lectures his passengers on various conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...
, visits his friend Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts
Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...
), who works for the U.S. Attorney, at the Justice Department
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
. She is trying to solve her father's murder. Jerry tells her that NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
is trying to kill the President using a secret weapon on the Space Shuttle
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...
that can trigger earthquakes.
Jerry identifies some men on the street as CIA, follows them into a building, and is captured by them. He wakes up in a mental hospital bound to a wheelchair. A doctor (Patrick Stewart
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...
) tapes his eyes open, injects him with a drug (LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
), and interrogates him using torture. As the LSD kicks in Jerry remembers many previous sessions, which he sees as terrifying cartoons. Jerry escapes, still bound to the wheelchair. He shuts himself in a laundry truck, escaping the premises. Jerry goes to Alice's office again and grabs a guard's gun, collapsing in Alice's arms.
Alice visits Jerry in the hospital. Handcuffed to the bed and forced to enter a drug-induced sleep, he pleads with her to switch his chart with that of a criminal in the next bed or he will be dead by morning. In the morning, when Alice visits again, the criminal is dead, as he has suffered a mysterious heart attack during the night. The CIA, FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
and other agencies are there. She meets a mysterious CIA psychiatrist
Technical Services Staff
Technical Services Staff is the United States Central Intelligence Agency component responsible for providing supporting gadgets, disguises, forgeries, secret writings, weapons and assassinations...
, Dr. Jonas. Meanwhile Jerry fakes a heart attack and escapes again, dropping himself down a linen chute. Jerry dresses up as another doctor and escapes the building.
Jonas quizzes Alice over lunch; she explains that Jerry saved her from muggers once, so she tolerates him. In Jerry's hospital room she finds a copy of The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye is a 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger. Originally published for adults, it has since become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage confusion, angst, alienation, language, and rebellion. It has been translated into almost all of the world's major...
. As she discusses it with an FBI officer named Lowry, the CIA come and confiscate all of Jerry's personal items. Lowry offers to share info with her but she declines.
The CIA cannot find Jerry. Alice goes to her car, and finds Jerry hiding in it. She stops the car and speaks with Lowry who is tailing them, and then they go to Jerry's apartment where he tells her about his conspiracy theories and his newsletter. He has dozens of copies of Catcher - feels compelled to buy it, but doesn't know why. They are interrupted when Jerry's alarm goes off, signaling the entry of a CIA SWAT
SWAT
A SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...
team. Jerry sets everything on fire and they leave by his secret trapdoor exit. In the room below, there is a large mural on the wall, which features both Alice and the triple smokestacks of a factory near the mental institution.
The pair go to Alice's apartment and he reveals he's been watching her through her window. She kicks him out. Outside, Jerry confronts Lowry and his partner staking out her place, and he warns them not to hurt her. He goes to a book store and buys a copy of Catcher. The CIA detects his purchase, and sends agents to catch him. Jerry sees their black helicopter
Black Helicopter
Black Helicopter is a United States Boston, Massachusetts based hard rock band on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! independent record label. The band performed at North East Sticks Together in 2005 and 2006....
s and men rappelling down and goes into a theater. He yells "there's a bomb under my chair" and manages to escape during the resulting panic.
The next morning, Alice has been calling each person who gets the newsletter, and they all have all died that night except one. Jerry uses a ruse to get her out of the office, and then attaches cables from the CIA vehicle following her to a vendor's cart. On a bus they discuss more of his theories. In a subway station where one Herriman drowned in another conspiracy, she agrees to check the autopsy. He says he loves her and she rejects him.
Alice goes to see the last surviving person on the subscription list, and it is Jonas. He explains that Jerry was an MK-ULTRA
Project MKULTRA
Project MKULTRA, or MK-ULTRA, was the code name for a covert, illegal CIA human experimentation program, run by the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence. This official U.S. government program began in the early 1950s, continued at least through the late 1960s, and used U.S...
subject but the project was terminated - except for his research. Jonas shows her a photo of her father taken from Jerry's locker, and claims that Jerry went out of control and killed her father. She is crushed.
Jerry sends Alice a pizza and says to meet him. Jonas gets her to agree to a homing device in the pizza box and Jerry drives her with the box across the Queensboro bridge. He has made previous arrangements that enable him to ditch the agents following them, leaving the homing device behind. As he drives her to her father's private horse stables, Jerry tells her that he can almost remember what happened and is taking her to where "the music is playing." Alice turns on her mobile phone so they can still track her. At the stables Jerry remembers that he was sent to kill her father (a judge who was about to expose Jonas' operation) but found he couldn't kill him. Instead they became friends and Jerry promised to watch over Alice before the judge was killed by another assassin. She admits she switched the charts in the hospital. The CIA arrive and capture Jerry. Jonas gloats but Jerry says, "you've never seen her run." Alice outruns the men; a sniper misses her, killing the last guy chasing her, and she escapes.
Jonas tortures Jerry again. Meanwhile, Alice leads the FBI men (who are not actually FBI but from a "secret agency that watches the other agencies") to Jonas' office, but it has been entirely dismantled. Declining Lowry's help, Alice starts searching for Jerry. She realizes that a detail of Jerry's large mural is near a mental hospital and goes there. She bribes an attendant to show her an unused wing, breaks in through locked doors, and finds Jerry after hearing him singing through the ventilation ducts. As Jonas catches them, Lowry arrives with his men and attacks Jonas's men. Jerry attempts to drown Jonas but is shot several times. In retaliation, Alice shoots Jonas dead. Alice tells Jerry she loves him as he is taken away in an ambulance.
Some time later, Alice visits Jerry's grave, leaving his union pin upon it, before returning to horse riding. As she rides away, Jerry, Lowry and Flip watching her. Jerry is not allowed to contact her until they are sure they have rounded up all of Jonas' other subjects. He secretly lets her know he is still alive by placing his union pin on her horse's saddle and the film ends.
Cast
- Mel GibsonMel GibsonMel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
as Jerry Fletcher - Julia RobertsJulia RobertsJulia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...
as Alice Sutton - Patrick StewartPatrick StewartSir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...
as Dr. Jonas - Cylk CozartCylk CozartCylk Cozart is an American actor who has appeared in over 30 films and 20 television shows.-Early life:Cozart was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. His father is of African ancestry and his mother is Native American. Prior to becoming an actor, Cozart was an established model working in Miami, FL...
as Agent Lowry - Steve KahanSteve KahanSteve Kahan is an American character actor who has appeared many films, his best known film role is in the Lethal Weapon film franchise as Capt. Ed Murphy. Kahan's cousin is director Richard Donner, who has cast Kahan in many of his films...
as Mr. Wilson - Pete KochPete KochPeter Alan Koch is a former American football defensive lineman in the National Football League and an American actor.-Football:...
as Fire Captain - Dean WintersDean WintersDean Winters is an American actor, who has portrayed Ryan O'Reily on HBO's Oz, Johnny Gavin on FX Network's Rescue Me, and Dennis Duffy on NBC's 30 Rock...
as Cleet - Sean Patrick ThomasSean Patrick ThomasSean Patrick Thomas is a Guyanese-American actor. He is perhaps best known for his co-starring role in the 2001 film Save the Last Dance, as well as his television role as Detective Temple Page in The District and also "Barber Shop".- Early life :Thomas is the son of immigrants from Guyana and was...
as Surveillance Operator - Joan LundenJoan LundenJoan Lunden is an American journalist, author and television host. She was the co-host of ABC's Good Morning America from 1980 through 1997 and is the author of 8 books...
as TV Announcer - Rick HoffmanRick HoffmanRick Hoffman is an American actor and is best known for his roles as Patrick Van Dorn in Jake in Progress and more recently as Louis Litt in USA Network's legal drama Suits.-Early life:...
as Night Security - Richard DonnerRichard DonnerRichard Donner is an American film director, film producer, and comic book writer.The production company The Donners' Company is owned by Donner and his wife, producer Lauren Shuler Donner. After directing the horror film The Omen, Donner became famous for the hailed creation of the first modern...
as Cab Passenger - Tom SchanleyTom SchanleyTom Schanley is an American actor who has appeared in a number of television shows and feature films.His television credits include roles in Castle, Dexter, The Forgotten, Criminal Minds, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, The Yellow Rose, Fame, T.J...
as Lawyer
Production notes
Early in the film, Jerry Fletcher expounds on a number of his theories to a succession of taxi passengers. On one of the featurettes included on the DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
release of the film, director Richard Donner reveals these scenes were ad-libbed by Mel Gibson. The extras
Extra (actor)
A background actor or extra is a performer in a film, television show, stage, musical, opera or ballet production, who appears in a nonspeaking, nonsinging or nondancing capacity, usually in the background...
acting as passengers were not told what Gibson was going to say because Donner wanted their reactions to be as spontaneous and realistic as possible.
The film was shot on location in and around New York City. Sites included Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
, Union Square
Union Square (New York City)
Union Square is a public square in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York.It is an important and historic intersection, located where Broadway and the former Bowery Road – now Fourth Avenue – came together in the early 19th century; its name celebrates neither the...
, Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, the Queensboro Bridge
Queensboro Bridge
The Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge, also known as the 59th Street Bridge – because its Manhattan end is located between 59th and 60th Streets – or simply the Queensboro Bridge, is a cantilever bridge over the East River in New York City that was completed in 1909...
, Roosevelt Island
Roosevelt Island
Roosevelt Island, known as Welfare Island from 1921 to 1973, and before that Blackwell's Island, is a narrow island in the East River of New York City. It lies between the island of Manhattan to its west and the borough of Queens to its east...
, and the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York
Valhalla, New York
Valhalla is an unincorporated hamlet and census-designated place that is located within the town of Mount Pleasant, New York, in Westchester County. Its population was 3,162 at the 2010 U.S. Census...
.
The soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
includes "Just Maintain" by Xzibit
Xzibit
Alvin Nathaniel Joiner , better known by his stage name Xzibit , is an American rapper, actor, and television host. He is known as the host of the MTV show Pimp My Ride, which brought him mainstream success...
, "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
"Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" is a song by British rock group The Police from their album Ghost in the Machine. It was also a hit single that reached the top of the charts in the United Kingdom in November 1981 and hit number three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart that same...
" by The Police, and two renditions of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You
Can't Take My Eyes off You
"Can't Take My Eyes Off You" is a 1967 single by Frankie Valli. The song was among Valli's biggest hits, reaching #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earning a gold record. It was Valli's biggest "solo" hit until he hit #1 in 1975 with "My Eyes Adored You"...
", one by Frankie Valli
Frankie Valli
Frankie Valli is an American musician, most famous as frontman of The Four Seasons. He is well-known for his unusually powerful falsetto singing voice...
and the other by Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Noelle Hill is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress.Early in her career, she established her reputation as a member of the Fugees. In 1998, she launched her solo career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album, The Miseducation of...
.
Critical reception
In her review in The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
said, "The only sneaky scheme at work here is the one that inflates a hollow plot to fill 2¼ hours while banishing skepticism with endless close-ups of big, beautiful movie-star eyes . . . Gibson, delivering one of the hearty, dynamic star turns that have made him the Peter Pan
Peter Pan
Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie . A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with...
of the blockbuster set, makes Jerry much more boyishly likable than he deserves to be. The man who talks to himself and mails long, delusional screeds to strangers is not usually the dreamboat type . . . After the story enjoys creating real intrigue . . . it becomes tied up in knots. As with too many high-concept escapades, Conspiracy Theory tacks on a final half-hour of hasty explanations and mock-sincere emotion. The last scene is an outright insult to anyone who took the movie seriously at its start."
Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
graded the film B- and commented, "Richard Donner . . . switches the movie from a really interesting, jittery, literate, and witty tone poem about justified contemporary paranoia
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
(and the creatively unhinged dark side of New York City) to an overloaded, meandering iteration of a Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon is a 1987 American buddy cop action film and the first in a series of films, all directed by Richard Donner and starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as a mismatched pair of LAPD detectives, and Gary Busey as their primary adversary...
project that bears the not-so-secret stamp of audience testing and tinkering."
In the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle is an American Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] [[film reviewer] and the author of two books on pre-[[Motion Picture Production Code|Hays Code]] Hollywood...
stated, "If I were paranoid I might suspect a conspiracy at work in the promoting of this movie - to suck in audiences with a catchy hook and then give them something much more clumsy and pedestrian . . . Conspiracy Theory can be enjoyed once one gives up hope of its becoming a thinking person's thriller and accepts it as just another diversion . . . When all else fails, there are still the stars to look at - Roberts, who actually manages to do some fine acting, and Gibson, whose likability must be a sturdy thing indeed."
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
observed the film "cries out to be a small film - a quixotic little indie production
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
where the daffy dialogue and weird characters could weave their coils of paranoia into great offbeat humor. Unfortunately, the parts of the movie that are truly good are buried beneath the deadening layers of thriller cliches and an unconvincing love story . . . If the movie had stayed at ground level - had been a real story about real people - it might have been a lot better, and funnier. All of the energy is in the basic material, and none of it is in a romance that is grafted on like an unneeded limb or superfluous organ."
In Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
said, "The strong impact that Gibson makes as damaged goods is diluted by selling Jerry as cute and redeemable. Instead of a scalding brew of mirth and malice, served black, Donner settles up a tepid latte
Latte
A latte is a coffee drink made with espresso and steamed milk. Variants include replacing the coffee with another drink base such as masala chai, mate or matcha...
, decaf
Decaffeination
Decaffeination is the act of removing caffeine from coffee beans, cocoa, tea leaves and other caffeine-containing materials. Despite removal of caffeine, many decaffeinated drinks still have around 1-2% of the...
. What a shame - Conspiracy Theory could have been a contender."
Todd McCarthy of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
called the film "a sporadically amusing but listless thriller that wears its humorous, romantic and political components like mismatched articles of clothing . . . This is a film in which all things . . . are treated lightly, even glibly . . . One can readily sympathize with . . . the director's desire to inject the picture with as much humor as possible. But he tries to have it every which way in the end, and the conflicting moods and intentions never mesh comfortably."
On the film review website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, the film only obtained 48% positive reviews among the 40 reviewers counted by the website in the "T-metric" system.
In his 2003 book A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America
A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America
A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America is a 2003 non-fiction book written by Michael Barkun, professor emeritus of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs...
, political scientist Michael Barkun
Michael Barkun
Michael Barkun is professor emeritus of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, specializing in political extremism and the relationship between religion and violence...
notes that a vast popular audience has been introduced by the film to the notion that the U.S. government is controlled by a secret team
Secret Team
The Secret Team, or ST, is a phrase coined by L. Fletcher Prouty in 1973, alleging a covert alliance between the United States' military, intelligence, and private sectors to influence political decisions.-Origins:...
in black helicopter
Black Helicopter
Black Helicopter is a United States Boston, Massachusetts based hard rock band on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! independent record label. The band performed at North East Sticks Together in 2005 and 2006....
s — a view once confined to the radical right
Radical Right
Radical Right is a generally pejorative term used to describe various political movements on the right that are conspiracist, attuned to anti-American or anti-Christian agents of foreign powers, and "politically radical." The term was first used by social scientists in the 1950s regarding small...
.
Box office performance
Conspiracy Theory was released August 8, 1997 to 2,806 theaters with an opening weekend gross of $19,313,566 in the United States. The film opened at number 1 in the U.S. displacing Air Force OneAir Force One (film)
Air Force One is a 1997 American action-thriller film written by Andrew W. Marlowe and directed by Wolfgang Petersen. It stars Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, and Glenn Close, and also features Xander Berkeley, William H. Macy, Dean Stockwell and Paul Guilfoyle...
as the number 1 film. The film eventually grossed $75,982,834 in the U.S. and $61,000,000 in foreign markets for a total worldwide gross of $136,982,834. This final gross qualified Conspiracy Theory as the 19th highest grossing film in the U.S. in 1997.