Echelon Conspiracy
Encyclopedia
Echelon Conspiracy is a 2009 science fiction
action thriller film directed by Greg Marcks
and starring Shane West
, Edward Burns
, and Ving Rhames
.
as Max Petersen) acquires a mobile phone that receives strange text messages. First they encourage him to miss his flight which he then learns crashed soon after takeoff. Then the messages direct him to buy a certain stock, which he then learns increases by 313%. Next, he is directed to a hotel/casino in Prague
to gamble. He first wins one-hundred thousand Euro on a slot machine
and then bets the entire amount on a hand of blackjack
, which he wins. Both bets are made on the basis of further text messages he receives on his new phone. Max then has an altercation with a beautiful woman (Tamara Feldman
) and her jealous boyfriend in the hotel corridor, where he is knocked-out and his mysterious phone is apparently scanned. Max wakes up with the woman, Kamila, smiling above him. He immediately asks her out for a drink.
To further his new-found career in gambling, Max enlists the aid of a Russian cabbie/apparent e-gadget enthusiast, Yuri (Sergey Gubanov), who outfits him with a text-to-voice earpiece to wirelessly receive his anonymous and lucrative text messages. His lucky streak continues when he hits the 3 million Euro jackpot on a slot machine but is forced to run away when casino security
led by John Reed (Edward Burns
) attempts to detain him. This chase is ended by the intervention of FBI Agent Dave Grant (Ving Rhames
) who handcuffs Max and interrogates him for information about the phone. Max is frightened, but unable to provide any information.
At this point Agent Grant contacts Raymond Burke (Martin Sheen
) of the NSA
, who is apparently monitoring Max because he is receiving messages from an omniscient communication surveillance computer system known as Echelon. These messages have been responsible for the deaths of several Americans, most recently an IT specialist working in the Pentagon
. Burke recently lost a battle to pass a bill in Congress that would allow Echelon to be upgraded by being uploaded into personal computers worldwide. Burke eventually decides that Max knows too much and must be eliminated, however, Reed and the beautiful woman from the hotel – now revealed as Reed's associate – come to Max's aid and spirit him away to Moscow
. There Max re-connects with the techie Yuri and tries to get his help in discovering who is sending the messages. Yuri believes that the messages are coming directly from the computer itself, and that the system has achieved some kind of autonomous self-awareness. Max and Reed object to his idea, but they are forced to flee when more armed men arrive at Yuri's apartment. A Moscow car chase ensues.
The chase ends with Reed outmaneuvering and eventually blowing-up the chase cars, which happen to be led by Agent Grant. Grant escapes injury, but Max seizes the moment to inflict some payback for their previous encounter. Grant asks Max to help him stop Echelon, as he has now also begun to receive threatening texts. Max then receives another text, instructing him to return to Omaha, Nebraska, where he first worked as a computer security engineer. Max, Grant and Reed all fly home on a military aircraft.
Arriving in Omaha, the group finds a sealed-up, bunker-like structure with a cache of servers and a high-end computer system that Max helped install years earlier. The property is revealed to belong to another victim of Echelon's messages, the same person whose credit card was used to send Max the phone. Max starts up the bunker's computer and is instructed via text to fire up the servers and connect them to the network. Echelon then begins downloading itself into the bunker's computers and begins a countdown to replicate itself across the world wide computer network. Agent Grant calls Burke at the NSA to inform him, but Burke is content to let the Echelon replicate itself worldwide, in the interests of US national security. Grant and Reed break ranks with Burke at this point and Burke sends back other FBI agents to detain them. Meanwhile, Max is failing to stop Echelon's replication countdown, until he takes an idea from the 1972s Star Trek episode The Ultimate Computer. Max asks the computer what its primary purpose is and it replies to defend the US, as defined by the Constitution. Max then asks the computer to search for threats to the US Constitution, and it comes back with a plethora of articles concerning the recent attempts to secure Congressional approval to upgrade Echelon, which is characterized as a grave threat to personal freedoms. At the point when the download is complete, Echelon "learns" that it is itself the threat and executes its own shutdown.
The film ends with Agent Grant and Reed sending Max and Kamila off to Paris, while Burke is subpoenaed to appear before the Senate intelligence committee. The final cryptic scene is back in Moscow, where the techie Yuri is unveiled as a Captain in the Russian Security Service. In a conversation (in Russian) with his apparent commanding officer he is commended for his actions. Yuri replies that they will soon try to start it again but, for today, they have helped the Americans to make the right decision; "I would like to believe", he adds cryptically, and at that moment turns off his mobile phone.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
action thriller film directed by Greg Marcks
Greg Marcks
Greg Marcks is a writer/director of motion pictures who lives in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California.-Early life:Marcks grew up in the town of Chelmsford, Massachusetts and attended Chelmsford High School....
and starring Shane West
Shane West
Shane West is an American actor, musician and songwriter. West is best known for portraying Eli Sammler in Once and Again, Landon Carter with Mandy Moore in A Walk to Remember, Darby Crash in What We Do Is Secret, and Dr...
, Edward Burns
Edward Burns
Edward Fitzgerald Burns is an American actor, film producer, writer and director.-Early life:Burns was born in Woodside, Queens, New York, the son of Molly , a federal agency manager, and Edward J. Burns, a public relations spokesman and police officer. He was raised a Roman Catholic...
, and Ving Rhames
Ving Rhames
Irving Rameses "Ving" Rhames is an American actor best known for his work in Bringing Out the Dead, Pulp Fiction, Baby Boy, Don King: Only in America, and the Mission: Impossible film series.-Early life and education:...
.
Plot
A young American computer engineer (Shane WestShane West
Shane West is an American actor, musician and songwriter. West is best known for portraying Eli Sammler in Once and Again, Landon Carter with Mandy Moore in A Walk to Remember, Darby Crash in What We Do Is Secret, and Dr...
as Max Petersen) acquires a mobile phone that receives strange text messages. First they encourage him to miss his flight which he then learns crashed soon after takeoff. Then the messages direct him to buy a certain stock, which he then learns increases by 313%. Next, he is directed to a hotel/casino in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
to gamble. He first wins one-hundred thousand Euro on a slot machine
Slot machine
A slot machine , informally fruit machine , the slots , poker machine or "pokies" or simply slot is a casino gambling machine with three or more reels which spin when a button is pushed...
and then bets the entire amount on a hand of blackjack
Blackjack
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...
, which he wins. Both bets are made on the basis of further text messages he receives on his new phone. Max then has an altercation with a beautiful woman (Tamara Feldman
Tamara Feldman
Tamara Feldman is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Mary Beth in Hatchet and in The CW television series Smallville, Supernatural and Gossip Girl.- Personal life :...
) and her jealous boyfriend in the hotel corridor, where he is knocked-out and his mysterious phone is apparently scanned. Max wakes up with the woman, Kamila, smiling above him. He immediately asks her out for a drink.
To further his new-found career in gambling, Max enlists the aid of a Russian cabbie/apparent e-gadget enthusiast, Yuri (Sergey Gubanov), who outfits him with a text-to-voice earpiece to wirelessly receive his anonymous and lucrative text messages. His lucky streak continues when he hits the 3 million Euro jackpot on a slot machine but is forced to run away when casino security
Casino security
Casino security refers to the measures that are taken at casinos to protect the establishment's money and property and the patrons. The security protects the casino and its customers from violent crime, theft, and other inappropriate behavior....
led by John Reed (Edward Burns
Edward Burns
Edward Fitzgerald Burns is an American actor, film producer, writer and director.-Early life:Burns was born in Woodside, Queens, New York, the son of Molly , a federal agency manager, and Edward J. Burns, a public relations spokesman and police officer. He was raised a Roman Catholic...
) attempts to detain him. This chase is ended by the intervention of FBI Agent Dave Grant (Ving Rhames
Ving Rhames
Irving Rameses "Ving" Rhames is an American actor best known for his work in Bringing Out the Dead, Pulp Fiction, Baby Boy, Don King: Only in America, and the Mission: Impossible film series.-Early life and education:...
) who handcuffs Max and interrogates him for information about the phone. Max is frightened, but unable to provide any information.
At this point Agent Grant contacts Raymond Burke (Martin Sheen
Martin Sheen
Ramón Gerardo Antonio Estévez , better known by his stage name Martin Sheen, is an American film actor best known for his performances in the films Badlands and Apocalypse Now , and in the television series The West Wing from 1999 to 2006.He is considered one of the best actors never to be...
) of the NSA
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...
, who is apparently monitoring Max because he is receiving messages from an omniscient communication surveillance computer system known as Echelon. These messages have been responsible for the deaths of several Americans, most recently an IT specialist working in the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
. Burke recently lost a battle to pass a bill in Congress that would allow Echelon to be upgraded by being uploaded into personal computers worldwide. Burke eventually decides that Max knows too much and must be eliminated, however, Reed and the beautiful woman from the hotel – now revealed as Reed's associate – come to Max's aid and spirit him away to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. There Max re-connects with the techie Yuri and tries to get his help in discovering who is sending the messages. Yuri believes that the messages are coming directly from the computer itself, and that the system has achieved some kind of autonomous self-awareness. Max and Reed object to his idea, but they are forced to flee when more armed men arrive at Yuri's apartment. A Moscow car chase ensues.
The chase ends with Reed outmaneuvering and eventually blowing-up the chase cars, which happen to be led by Agent Grant. Grant escapes injury, but Max seizes the moment to inflict some payback for their previous encounter. Grant asks Max to help him stop Echelon, as he has now also begun to receive threatening texts. Max then receives another text, instructing him to return to Omaha, Nebraska, where he first worked as a computer security engineer. Max, Grant and Reed all fly home on a military aircraft.
Arriving in Omaha, the group finds a sealed-up, bunker-like structure with a cache of servers and a high-end computer system that Max helped install years earlier. The property is revealed to belong to another victim of Echelon's messages, the same person whose credit card was used to send Max the phone. Max starts up the bunker's computer and is instructed via text to fire up the servers and connect them to the network. Echelon then begins downloading itself into the bunker's computers and begins a countdown to replicate itself across the world wide computer network. Agent Grant calls Burke at the NSA to inform him, but Burke is content to let the Echelon replicate itself worldwide, in the interests of US national security. Grant and Reed break ranks with Burke at this point and Burke sends back other FBI agents to detain them. Meanwhile, Max is failing to stop Echelon's replication countdown, until he takes an idea from the 1972s Star Trek episode The Ultimate Computer. Max asks the computer what its primary purpose is and it replies to defend the US, as defined by the Constitution. Max then asks the computer to search for threats to the US Constitution, and it comes back with a plethora of articles concerning the recent attempts to secure Congressional approval to upgrade Echelon, which is characterized as a grave threat to personal freedoms. At the point when the download is complete, Echelon "learns" that it is itself the threat and executes its own shutdown.
The film ends with Agent Grant and Reed sending Max and Kamila off to Paris, while Burke is subpoenaed to appear before the Senate intelligence committee. The final cryptic scene is back in Moscow, where the techie Yuri is unveiled as a Captain in the Russian Security Service. In a conversation (in Russian) with his apparent commanding officer he is commended for his actions. Yuri replies that they will soon try to start it again but, for today, they have helped the Americans to make the right decision; "I would like to believe", he adds cryptically, and at that moment turns off his mobile phone.
Cast
- Shane WestShane WestShane West is an American actor, musician and songwriter. West is best known for portraying Eli Sammler in Once and Again, Landon Carter with Mandy Moore in A Walk to Remember, Darby Crash in What We Do Is Secret, and Dr...
as Max Peterson - Edward BurnsEdward BurnsEdward Fitzgerald Burns is an American actor, film producer, writer and director.-Early life:Burns was born in Woodside, Queens, New York, the son of Molly , a federal agency manager, and Edward J. Burns, a public relations spokesman and police officer. He was raised a Roman Catholic...
as John Reed - Ving RhamesVing RhamesIrving Rameses "Ving" Rhames is an American actor best known for his work in Bringing Out the Dead, Pulp Fiction, Baby Boy, Don King: Only in America, and the Mission: Impossible film series.-Early life and education:...
as Agent Dave Grant - Martin SheenMartin SheenRamón Gerardo Antonio Estévez , better known by his stage name Martin Sheen, is an American film actor best known for his performances in the films Badlands and Apocalypse Now , and in the television series The West Wing from 1999 to 2006.He is considered one of the best actors never to be...
as Raymond Burke - Jonathan PryceJonathan PryceJonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
as Mueller - Tamara FeldmanTamara FeldmanTamara Feldman is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Mary Beth in Hatchet and in The CW television series Smallville, Supernatural and Gossip Girl.- Personal life :...
as Kamila - Sergey Gubanov as Yuri Malinin
- Gosha KutsenkoGosha KutsenkoYuriy Georgiyevich Kutsenko , better known as Gosha Kutsenko is a Russian actor, producer, singer, poet, and screenwriter. In 2008 he joined the United Russia party. Kutsenko has appeared in high profile films such as Mama Don't Cry, Antikiller, Night Watch, and Echelon...
, as Russian General - Steven ElderSteven ElderSteven Elder is an English actor working in film, television and theatre.-Biography:Steven Elder's birth name is Steven William Thomas Lawrence. He was born in the front room of 63 Elder Drive in the coal-mining community of Sunnyside, Rotherham, England. His grandfather, father and five uncles...
as Charles
Trivia
- The strategy to show a computer his nonsense logic was inspired by the Star Trek episode The Ultimate Computer (1972) and the movie WarGamesWarGamesWarGames is a 1983 American Cold War suspense/science-fiction film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes and directed by John Badham. The film stars Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy....
(1982).
External links
- "Film Review: The Gift" by Duane Byrge at The Hollywood Reporter (May 16, 2008)