When I picked up this video for a couple of bucks I'd never heard of it, and Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts don't seem a likely pair. I was therefore pleasantly surprised by the film. It has heart, decent performances, especially by Gibson who plays against type, an interesting story, quite a few surprises, and for anyone who loves a good conspiracy this presents one. I've seen it several times and it always entertains. Definitely worth a look.

This romantic thriller was made over a decade ago, years before I was old enough to watch R-rated movies, and by the time I rented it just yesterday, I still didn't know much about it. However, I did know that the co-stars were Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts, two Hollywood movie stars I had been familiar with for a long time. I also knew that it was directed by Richard Donner, who directed the "Lethal Weapon" quadrilogy, which Gibson also co-starred in. I had seen all four of those films, and thought that overall, it was a good franchise. So, I rented "Conspiracy Theory" because I knew it was another film directed by Donner and starring Gibson and it also looked like a promising thriller. Still, I wanted to like it more than I did.

Jerry Fletcher is a New York taxi driver and dedicated conspiracy theorist. He can think of conspiracy theories for anything, and constantly talks to his passengers about them. He even writes his theories in his own newsletter, which is sent to only five different people in the mail. The taxi driver has a crush on Alice Sutton, and woman who works for the Justice Department and whose father was murdered, but she doesn't know about Fletcher's feelings towards her. One day, after he is kicked out of Alice's office, he is soon captured by a group of CIA agents and finds himself in a mysterious place where he is tortured by a CIA doctor named Dr. Jonas! This sends Jerry into a fit of insanity, and after he bites the doctor's nose, severely injuring him, he manages to escape from the building. It turns out that at least one of the New York taxi driver's many conspiracy theories appears to be true, but he can't tell which one it is!

The beginning shows the main character ranting to various passengers in his cab about his conspiracy theories, and this is a fairly shaky beginning. Soon after that, there's a flashy sequence showing Jerry's frightening memories, and I found this part to be a little rushed and unfocused. A lot of the film can probably be described that way. That part is followed by a cheesy and overlong scene with the taxi driver watching his love interest through her window, singing on her treadmill. Despite all this, it still looks like it's going to be at least a fairly decent thriller around the beginning and it is at times, but it's not consistent enough. The early torture scene didn't do much for me, and it even features frightening memories of Jerry's flashing before his eyes again, with the same problems as the first time this happens. Another thing that doesn't help is that Jerry's constant conspiracy theories can get tiring. Fortunately, there are definitely some good thrills and action, and Mel Gibson puts on an impressive performance as Jerry Fletcher, though his character here is no match for the likable Martin Riggs in the "Lethal Weapon" series. Julia Roberts as Alice Sutton and Patrick Stewart (another actor I've been familiar with for a long time) as Dr. Jonas are also memorable cast highlights.

At 135 minutes, this 1997 thriller is a fairly long movie, and later in the film, it didn't seem as flawed to me as it did for a long time before then. It might improve after a while, and Gibson's character might eventually get easier to sympathize with. I may have been worn out during the second half or so, and get the feeling I could have gotten just a BIT more out of the film (at least closer to the end) if I'd had a bit more energy. For that reason, I feel I could almost give it a 7/10 instead of a 6. On the other hand, I don't think having a high energy level would have hidden this movie's severe flaws from me, flaws which make "Conspiracy Theory" somewhat disappointing. Even if it does improve along the way, I would say it definitely takes quite a while to do so. This movie is by no means horrible, and could be entertaining if you like a good romantic thriller and are old enough to see the violence here, but it still didn't meet my expectations.

I probably should stop thinking about this film too much or I might talk myself into disliking it. There's a lot of disbelief to suspend in this one, the biggest one occurring when Jerry (Mel Gibson) stopped his car on the bridge with Alice (Julia Roberts) along, hopped across the divider, and found an abandoned car up on a jack that looked like it was ready to go just for him when he got there. If you were a gambler in Vegas, what odds would you take on that one?

Then there was the whole business at the stable when Jerry began remembering or mis-remembering the circumstances of Alice's father's murder. He started out thinking that he did it, that he might have done it, and then in a moment of clarity, knew that he didn't do it. How was Alice supposed to figure out which version was correct? But she did it - remarkable!

I guess what you have to do here is go with the flow of Jerry Fletcher's wild and random musings until the whole back story of Dr.Jonas/Henry Finch (Patrick Stewart) plays out. His diabolical experiments in mind control with Jerry as his prize specimen was a well constructed plot device, as Jerry in turn is followed closely by Lowry's (Cylk Kozart) shadow organization.

I imagine there are conspiracy theorists who approach Jerry Fletcher's level of paranoia, and it must be a tough way to live. The film would have raised a whole lot of eyebrows after the fact if one of Jerry's predictions had been the destruction of the World Trade Center. Released four years before 9/11/01, the movie had a couple of clear shots of the Twin Towers during the first half as Jerry advanced many of his astounding theories.