Conspiracy Theory (film)
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Original poster
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| Directed by | Richard Donner |
| Produced by | Richard Donner Joel Silver |
| Written by | Brian Helgeland |
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| Music by | Carter Burwell |
| Cinematography | John Schwartzman |
| Edited by | Kevin Stitt Frank J. Urioste |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
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Release date
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Running time
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135 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $80 million |
| Box office | $137 million |
Conspiracy Theory is a 1997 American political action thriller film directed by Richard Donner. The original screenplay by Brian Helgeland centers on an eccentric taxi driver (Mel Gibson) who believes many world events are triggered by government conspiracies, and the Justice Department attorney (Julia Roberts) who becomes involved in his life. The movie was a financial success, but critical reviews were mixed.
Conspiracy-theorist New York City taxi driver Jerry Fletcher continually expounds his ideas to his friend Alice Sutton, a lawyer at the Justice Department. She humors him because he once saved her from a mugging, but does not know he has been spying on her at home. Her own work is to solve the mystery of her father's murder. Seeing suspicious activity everywhere, Jerry identifies some men as CIA workers, follows them into a building, and is captured. A doctor injects a wheelchair-bound Jerry with LSD and interrogates him using torture. Jerry experiences terrifying hallucinations and flashbacks, panics, and manages to escape, incapacitating the doctor by biting his nose.
Handcuffed to the hospital bed and forced into a drug-induced sleep, Jerry persuades Alice to switch his chart with that of a criminal in the next bed or he will be dead by morning. When Alice visits the next day, the criminal is dead, allegedly from a mysterious heart attack. The CIA, FBI and other agencies are there, led by CIA psychiatrist Dr. Jonas, whose nose is bandaged. Meanwhile, with Alice's help, Jerry fakes a heart attack and escapes again. The pair go to Alice's apartment and Jerry accidentally reveals he's been watching her. Jerry confronts FBI agent Lowry and his partner staking out her place, and he warns them at gunpoint not to hurt her. Jerry sees their operatives rappelling down from black helicopters and hides in a theater, escaping by causing a panic.
Alice calls each person on the newsletter mail-list and finds that all have recently died, except one. Jerry uses a ruse to get her out of the office, and then immobilizes the operatives watching her. During their escape, he tells her that he loves her, then flees on a subway train when she brushes off his feelings. She goes to see the last surviving person on the subscription list, and finds it is Jonas. He explains that Jerry was brainwashed during Dr. Jonas' time with Project MKUltra to become an assassin and claims that Jerry killed her father. She agrees to help find Jerry, who sends her a message to meet him. They ditch the agents following them and he drives her to her father's private horse stables in Connecticut, but Alice secretly calls her office so that Jonas can track her. At the stables, Jerry remembers that he was sent to kill her father but found he could not. Jerry instead promised to watch over Alice before the judge was killed by another assassin. Jonas' men capture Jerry, and a sniper tries to get Alice, but she escapes.
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