Echelon Conspiracy (2009)

This is the first time I am leaving a comment about a movie. I should have done this many times when I was satisfied or blown away by a really good piece of work like the recent Oscar-nominated films.

When I saw the trailer for this, I thought it was a rip-off of Eagle Eye. But copycats are common in Hollywood and I wanted to see Shane West again whom I adored in "A Walk To Remember".

What a disappointment! Shane's acting is lousy! I was hoping he would have matured by now. I believe he still belongs to teeny-bopper roles and he seriously needs an acting coach before he ruins any more in the future. I cannot enjoy a movie regardless how good the plot is if the lead actor fails to deliver. You can have an easy plot or a movie with hardly any special effects but if performance was outstanding, I will give that a 10 (case in point- Clint Eastwood films; Leonardo DiCaprio's acting.) Ed Burns doesn't help either - his voice together with Shane West is very irritating. I don't need to see good-looking men with no substance, no thanks.

Honestly, I didn't bother to finish the movie. I couldn't bring myself to waste any more time with it. I have no idea why Ving Rhames and Martin Sheen agreed to support this.

Watch this if you have nothing better to do.

Fmovies: Echelon Conspiracy - a very promising title for fans of the genre. But how were we disappointed. If you like conspiracy movies, you have to be open to bending the rules of plausibility and statistics. But what they presented here was such complete and utter nonsense, delivered by the most stereotypic characters, that it almost made me angry. It's not the actors' fault, they did a good job (well, Shane West isn't exactly subtle but the film wasn't either). The locations were interesting, the filming was OK. But the story? Come on! Even the most open minded X Phile must be disappointed. And that one scene where a guy shoots a car and with the second shot the car explodes and jumps 2 meters into the air? Hello? Haven't seen that in a while because by now even James Bond fans don't buy that anymore. So while I really enjoy good conspiracy movies like Enemy of the State or Conspiracy Theory, this one was a lame attempt. You should have spent more time and money for the script.

This movie has been the reason for me to register with IMDb ... I was expecting a lot from it and the whole story does not make sense. It is poorly written, the story and the plot do not make any sense. Martin Sheen is doing "his bit" , and the main character (sorry I don't remember his name) really does a poor acting job. The story moves fast from one place to the other, with some sort of semi-fake-love story between the main character and this "gorgeous" lady, but the story does not connect whatsoever. The locations of the movie skip to quickly (from Thailand to Czech Republic, and it hangs for an hour or so ... in the Czech Republic. I definitely found it very boring to watch no characters evolve, the storyline being very weak, and the plot (again) is just a cheap trick.This is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time, and I definitely do not recommend it !

Echelon Conspiracy fmovies. I watched "The Echelon Conspiracy" last night and found it to be a fun escapism movie. Much better than "Eagle Eye" however...

The casting was horrible. Lead actor, Shane West was just dreadful - and I have enjoyed his work in other roles. And, Edward Burns as a casino boss that's an ex-FBI agent - totally unbelievable. His wimpy little voice commands no authority in this role.

All in all, the movie was fun but I can definitely see why it did not get a big U.S. release since "Eagle Eye" is probably still in everyone's mind and the miscasting of actors for the most important roles didn't help either.

At one glance, it's easy to dismiss Echelon Conspiracy as yet another Eagle Eye wannabe. Face it, it has a man who receives mysterious and anonymous instructions, being on the run from authorities, and constantly getting put into various lines of fire. Only that despite its plot loopholes and common ground factors, this B-grade movie is a lot more fun than the big budgeted action thriller from last year, and Shane West being a lot less irritating that Shia LaBeouf.

West (the only other recent film I saw him in was Red Sands) plays a computer engineer Max Peterson, who while in Bangkok for a job assignment, receives a mysterious DHL (thank you product placement) package which contains a state of the art mobile phone (I want one!), seemingly bundled with real time information which provided him a Final Destination moment, and insider trader information. He doesn't know who's tipping him off, but like every ordinary Joe out there, nobody's rejecting money-spinning messages once the results have been verified.

Which brings him to Prague and Moscow and back to the USA in a semi-global wild goose chase in order not to look cheap, first by Ed Burns' John Reed, an ex-FBI agent now working for a conglomerate whose casino Max tries to fleece from, then from Ving Rhames' Agent Dave Grant, under orders from NSA chief Raymond Burke who has higher orders to allow Dave to work outside of the country (yep, that's unbelievable loophole #1 if you wish). In any case it's a reluctant cat-and-mouse chase of sorts and cooperation in others as the trio play at this dangerous cloak-and-dagger in trying to find out who the source of instructional messages that have caused the lives of the recipients. No prizes to be won after you sit through some 20 minutes of the film actually.

There's plenty of slime thrown at the Bush Administration by writers Kevin Elders and Michael Nitsberg, aiming the gunsights of their story squarely at the Patriot Act, and the playing of the trading of freedom for big brother type of surveillance, which is legendary of the NSA. Perhaps there's too much credit here given for being able to come up with THE ultimate supercomputer able to crunch facts and numbers, to be the tool of choice when tapping into just about every telecommunications device in the world to churn out threat reports. A little science-fiction thrown in of course, with big assumptions that everything is connected on the world wide grid, and coupled with an ending that would astonish non-techies, but a comedy to nerds.

Recognizable names such as Burns, Rhames, Sheen and even Jonathan Pryce lend some gravitas into a slightly-above average thriller, which if you put aside the implausibles, actually is of some fun. Shane West though makes a good alternative to the over-exposed Shia LaBeouf, and hopefully we get to see opportunities presented to him to step up into more mainstream, big-budgeted action roles, because frankly, today's Hollywood cinema needs a new It boy to be doing all the running, rather than going back to the same old name currently.

I just cannot stop laughing at the lack of ingenuity of the filmmakers of having the BBC news channel spoofed as CCD (C'mon, can you be a little more creative than this?) with similar colour schemes employed, and an English accent too. Echelon Conspiracy isn't going to win over any fans, but it was fun while it lasted. Just check your logic at the door.

This film got a 5 out of me, because in the end I realized this movie is a lower budget, straight to DVD version of other movies in its genre and subject matter. The film itself seemed hastily put together with what scenes they shot to muster up a simple and digestible, even if disagreeable film.

The Pros: I'll name these first to be kind. -Story and characters make sense... more on this later. -It's international, but mostly American. They travel around the world (or so they say in the film but mostly in Prague, Moscow and somewhere in the US).

The Cons: -Too many holes and unanswered questions in the script and story line. -The main character lacks intelligent initiative. -The script itself is lacking in many areas and just assumes things without presenting them to the audience. -They give too much credit to the computer and to the characters without establishing any premise.

Straight to DVD in my opinion and not worth a watch in the theater. However the premise and subject matter is somewhat realistic with the findings of Ghostnet and other information gathering computer attacks found by Canadian and US university researchers.