The Shadow Conspiracy: Critic Reviews

The film is so contemptuous of its audience it doesn't even bother to present a surface resemblance to reality.

Some political junkies have an inordinate yen for movies that hop-skip around familiar Washington, D.C., locales and inside the bowels of a sinister White House. Members of this club may get some ephemeral amusement out of Shadow Conspiracy.

When Charlie Sheen and Donald Sutherland appear in any movie, you should be wary. Their contracts seem to demand nothing but corny formula.

There isn't a brain in its empty little head, or in its assembly-line story, which is about how Charlie Sheen pauses occasionally between ludicrous action scenes, some of them ripped off from better films.

Bland, interminable chase scenes take up so much of the story -- the hackneyed plot doesn't need much exposition -- that the sheer repetitiveness begins to amaze you.

The climactic assassination attempt... is so ridiculous there's only one real danger: that the president (and the audience) will laugh to death.

Here, we have stereotyped villains involved in a generic, high- level conspiracy, and a couple of equally-bland heroes on the run.

Corpses pile up, dreadful secrets are uncovered, and Bishop eventually gets to the bottom of things, a full hour after the least attentive viewer will have figured out who's behind it all.

Sadly, Sheen doesn't even look profound. Like a zombie who's spent too much time in the gym, he blunders heavily from one stunt to the next, his pursed lips conveying nothing more than pique.

The story's driven completely by coincidence and baffling lunacy, and you'll be driven... to press eject on your VCR.

Ridiculous.

The whole thing is so vague and preposterous and paranoid that it almost goes without saying that Donald Sutherland plays a key role.

Sheen is a handsome and resourceful actor, but not enough so to win in this conspiracy of shadows over substance.

A truly pathetic thriller.

The rest of the film is Sheen, playing a George Stephanopoulos-styled presidential adviser, being chased around Washington D.C. by an assassin who is a terrible shot and has no speaking lines.

The plot, as it eventually unfolds, is so absurd and leads to such a silly climax that much of the audience's good will is burned away.

Is it just me or is Charlie Sheen the kiss of death for anything other than Hot Shots?

The audience is guaranteed to laugh at all the wrong moments.

Donald Sutherland plays Sheen's enigmatic mentor at the White House. Do you think he could have something to with the conspiracy? Sutherland as a bad guy? You think?

If you can't figure out all of the bad guys within the first ten minutes of the film, then you have not been getting your daily adult requirement of mysteries.