Shadow Conspiracy

2/9/2023

The problem when you try to tell a story like this, is that there has to be a degree on plausibility in the premiss. Otherwise, it might as well have stayed on the page. This is, sadly, an example of the latter. "Bishop" (Charlie Sheen) is an advisor to the US president who finds himself the target of an assassin. Why? Well, for the vast majority of the film, your guess is every bit as good as mine, though it is pretty clear who. His only way to survive is to go to ground, and with the help of his boss "Conrad" (Donald Sutherland) and good old "Sarah Connor" herself Linda Hamilton, get to the bottom of things. It's really quite a dull movie this. Sheen is out of his depth as an action actor, he tries to hard to convey some sense of his perilous predicament, but he just isn't good enough to

7/15/2023

A very good action director teams with a big name cast to create one of the silliest political conspiracy films ever made. Bobby Bishop (Charlie Sheen) is a hot-shot special assistant to the President (Sam Waterston). He wheels, he deals, he charms, and everybody in Washington, D. C. loves him so much you expect adoption proceedings to begin. His boss, Chief of Staff Conrad (Donald Sutherland) speaks of him with both eyes twinkling, while gruff Vice President Saxon (Ben Gazzara) is put off by his shenanigans. One of Bobby's old professors escapes from a house where almost half a dozen of his colleagues are killed by one man (Stephen Lang). The professor has information for Bobby about a shadow government operating in the White House, but is killed by the assassin before he can offer any mo

8/22/2025

I last saw this probably sometime in 1997 on VHS, renting from Blockbuster. Decent enough cast for the time this was just an all-around ludicrous political thriller that makes no sense and has so many laughable scenes like three characters at the center of the "conspiracy" meeting out in the open or the finale where the tool to assassinate the president (a model helicopter which is dumb in itself) is taken down by balloons. The only positive I can say is Stephen Lang, who plays the assassin, is pretty intimidating even though he doesn't utter a single word. It's pretty easy to see why this one has been forgotten and doesn't even have a DVD release in the U.S. **1.75/5**