Conspiracy Theory (film)
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| Conspiracy Theory | |
|---|---|
| Image:Conspiracy theory poster.jpg Film poster for Conspiracy Theory | |
| Directed by | Richard Donner |
| Produced by | Richard Donner Joel Silver |
| Written by | Brian Helgeland |
| Starring | Mel Gibson Julia Roberts Patrick Stewart |
| Music by | Carter Burwell |
| Cinematography | John Schwartzman |
| Editing by | Kevin Stitt Frank J. Urioste |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | 8 August 1997 (USA) |
| Running time | 135 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $75,000,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
- "Conspiracy Theory" redirects here. For conspiracy theories in general, see Conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy Theory is a 1997 thriller directed by Richard Donner. It stars Mel Gibson as Jerry Fletcher, an eccentric taxi driver who believes that many world events are actually government conspiracies. Jerry is infatuated with an assistant district attorney named Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts), whom Jerry once saved. Alice believes Jerry is a harmless, good-natured eccentric — until one of his theories turns out to be fact. Jerry turns out to be linked to the murder of Alice's father and to a mysterious scientist named Dr. Jonas (Patrick Stewart) who has been using a CIA program called MKULTRA to program Jerry as a Manchurian Candidate-style assassin.
But even Alice can't fathom the depths of this conspiracy.
In the film, some of the other conspiracy theories believed by Jerry seem to come true. For example, Jerry believes that NASA is trying to kill the President with a shuttle-mounted seismic weapon. Later in the movie, an earthquake occurs in a region of the world the President is visiting, and he narrowly escapes.
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[edit] Controversy over opening
Mel Gibson is rumored to be a bit of a conspiracy buff. In 1981, he starred in The Road Warrior, which made him a star in the United States. In this film, there is a reference to the Seven Sisters conspiracy, which states that before OPEC gained control of oil production and pricing, that the world's seven largest oil companies were actually in cahoots to monopolize the industry — in essence, it was one company under seven different names.
At the beginning of Conspiracy Theory, Jerry Fletcher is espousing a number of his theories to a succession of passengers. On the DVD's audio commentary track, director Richard Donner revealed that these scenes were ad-libbed by Gibson to extras acting as passengers because they wanted realistic reactions from them. It was widely speculated that these were, in fact, Gibson's personal views. Arguably, the most controversial comment Gibson made was when he told two nuns that the Vatican was a "festering scab that needs to be lifted." In reality, Mel Gibson is a devout traditionalist Catholic who (like his father, Hutton Gibson) is critical of the modern Roman Catholic Church. They belong to a small sect that operates independently of Vatican influence and denounces many of the new rules implemented during the Second Vatican Council.
[edit] Trivia
- The role of Alice Sutton was initially offered to Jodie Foster who starred in the 1976 movie Taxi Driver with another Taxi driver political assassin Robert De Niro.
- Jerry runs into a theatre showing Ladyhawke (1985), also directed by Richard Donner who also directed all four Lethal Weapon films.
- Mark David Chapman, the assassin of ex-Beatle John Lennon, had a paperback book, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye in his possession when the police arrived and found him standing "very calmly" where he had been. In the movie, Jerry's programming drives him to buy the book whenever he can, and this allows Dr. Jonas to track him.
- When escaping from Dr. Jonas at the hospital, Jerry disguises himself in medical scrubs. He then introduces himself to a doctor at the hospital as Dr. Fine, a reference to the Three Stooges film Men in Black.
