3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for violence, intense action, profanity and mild sexuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.5.09
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Proving once again that an unpretentious B-flick can be much more fun than many of its puffed-up Hollywood cousins, Echelon Conspiracy is a cheerfully mindless good time at the movies.
Director Greg Marcks' fast-paced cyber-thriller has been released with little fanfare in this late winter dead zone, and that's a shame; Marcks' film deserves more attention than it's likely to get surrounded by the likes of Confessions of a Shopaholic
and the pointless (albeit popular) remake of Friday the 13th
. |
| Having finally realized that the messages on his spiffy new cell phone aren't always helpful, Max (Shane West) and his somewhat mysterious new friend, Kamila (Tamara Feldman) decide to ignore the silly thing ... at which point our hero gets another text warning that failure to comply will result in his swift and unpleasant death. (Have a nice day!) |
Mind you, Echelon Conspiracy suffers from a serious case of deja vu, since screenwriters Kevin Elders and Michael Nitsberg have concocted a narrative that bears more than a passing resemblance to last year's much more expensive Eagle Eye
. (One wonders which script was registered first.) Both films, I hasten to add, are wholly preposterous ... but somehow Echelon Conspiracy is easier to go along with, probably because it doesn't take itself nearly as seriously.
Trouble-shooting software wonk Max Peterson (Shane West), having just completed a routine assignment in Bangkok, is surprised to receive a package at his hotel room. He finds a way-cool cell phone inside the box, which has no return address or indication of sender.
The phone springs to life on its own, and encourages Max to take advantage of an unpublicized bargain at the hotel, and thus stay an extra night. Max does so, and his world is rocked shortly thereafter, when he realizes that the plane he would have taken — had he left on schedule — has just crashed.
The phone's text messages subsequently encourage a trip to Prague, and a stay at a hotel/casino where Max has an amazing string of luck at slots and blackjack, by obeying the suggestions coming to him from ... somewhere.
This unlikely financial windfall brings him to the attention of casino security chief John Reed (Edward Burns), a transplanted American once employed with the FBI. While dodging Reed and his minions, Max also runs afoul of American covert ops agent Dave Grant (Ving Rhames); the latter gets first crack at our engaging young protagonist.
In due course, we discover that Max is the latest in a string of apparently random Americans who've received these phones; the only difference is that all the others are dead, each having perished under unusual circumstances. Grant believes that, as with the others, Max is being set up to perform some sort of function; the questions are what and why, not to mention who's pulling the strings.
Additional complications arrive courtesy of a chatty Prague taxi driver (Sergey Gubanov, as Yuri), who moonlights as a resourceful computer hacker, and a mysterious young woman (Tamara Feldman, as Kamila) with a come-hither smile and a suspiciously timed "meet cute" moment, which Max chalks up to more good fortune.
