Echelon Conspiracy
| Echelon Conspiracy | |
|---|---|
Promotional film poster
|
|
| Directed by | Greg Marcks |
| Produced by | John Corser Alexander Leyviman Steve Richards Roee Sharon |
| Screenplay by | Kevin Elders Michael Nitsberg |
| Story by | Michael Nitsberg |
| Starring |
Shane West Edward Burns Ving Rhames Jonathan Pryce Martin Sheen |
| Music by | Bobby Tahouri |
| Cinematography | Lorenzo Senatore |
| Edited by | Joseph Gutowski James Herbert |
|
Production
company |
|
| Distributed by | After Dark Films |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
105 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English Russian |
| Box office | $2,186,782 |
Echelon Conspiracy (formerly titled The Gift) is a 2009 American science fiction action thriller film directed by Greg Marcks and starring Shane West, Edward Burns, and Ving Rhames.
A young American computer engineer (Shane West as Max) acquires a mobile phone that receives strange text messages. First they encourage him to miss his flight which crashes soon after takeoff. Then the messages direct him to buy a certain stock, which increases by 313%. Next, the messages direct him to a hotel/casino in Prague to gamble. He first wins one-hundred thousand euro on a slot machine and bets the entire amount on a hand of blackjack, which he wins. Max then has an altercation with a beautiful woman (Tamara Feldman) and her jealous boyfriend in the hotel corridor, where he is knocked-out, and his mysterious phone is apparently scanned. Max wakes up with the smiling woman, Kamila, and asks her out for a drink.
To further his new-found career in gambling, Max enlists the aid of a Russian cabbie/apparent e-gadget enthusiast, Yuri (Sergey Gubanov), who outfits him with a text-to-voice earpiece to wirelessly receive his anonymous and lucrative text messages. He then hits the 3 million euro jackpot on a slot machine but runs away when casino security led by John Reed (Edward Burns) attempts to detain him. FBI Agent Dave Grant (Ving Rhames) interrupts the chase and handcuffs Max to interrogate him about the phone. Frightened, Max is unable to provide any information.
At this point, Agent Grant contacts Raymond Burke (Martin Sheen) of the NSA, apparently monitoring Max because of messages from an omniscient communication surveillance computer system known as Echelon. These messages have been responsible for the deaths of several Americans, most recently a Pentagon IT specialist. Burke recently lost a battle to pass a bill in Congress to allow Echelon to be upgraded by being uploaded into personal computers worldwide. Burke eventually decides that Max knows too much and must be eliminated; however, Reed and the beautiful woman from the hotel – now revealed as Reed's associate – come to Max's aid and spirit him away to Moscow. There, Max reconnects with the techie Yuri to get his help to discovering who is sending the messages. Yuri believes that the messages are coming directly from the computer itself, and that the system has somehow become self-aware and autonomous. Max and Reed don't agree but flee when more armed men arrive at Yuri's apartment. A car chase through Moscow ensues.
...
Wikipedia