Susan Granger’s review of “Echelon Conspiracy” (After Dark Pictures)
Good title…bad movie. What we have here is, basically, a high-tech whodunit that goes awry.
Max Peterson (Shane West of TV’s “ER”) is a top-notch computer security expert whose specialty is installing password protection. After completing a job in Bangkok, he returns to his hotel where he receives a mysterious package containing a sleek, state-of-the-art cell phone. Text messages start streaming in, suggesting that he extend his stay in Thailand and advising him to change his plane ticket home. He does – and the flight he was supposed to be on crashes. Then he gets a hot stock tip – and the price skyrockets. He’s dispatched to a casino in the Czech Republic, where text messages direct him to play a specific slot machine to win a jackpot and to a certain blackjack table for a big payoff.
Max’s sudden $3 million win alerts the casino’s vigilant security chief (Ed Burns), the casino’s perturbed owner (Jonathan Pryce), a Russian technology whiz (Yuri Kutsenko), a sexy operative (Tamara Feldman), a persistent FBI agent (Ving Rhames), even the blustering NSA chief (Martin Sheen). Everyone wants to know who is sending Max messages – and why, particularly since other seemingly random Americans have received similar cell phones and they all wound up dead. All clues point to the greatest surveillance tool ever created.
Written by Kevin Elders and Michel Nitsberg and directed by Greg Marcks, it bears a remarkable plot resemblance to “Eagle Eye,” at least in its cell phone contrivance. Yet the dialogue is absurd and experienced actors like Jonathan Pryce, Ving Rhames and Martin Sheen look embarrassed delivering their lines, causing one to think that times must be tough in the casting offices these days.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Echelon Conspiracy” is a tedious 3. How it ever got a theatrical release and didn’t go straight to dvd is the biggest mystery of all.
