Conspiracy Theory (film) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

In her review in The New York Times, Janet Maslin said, "The only sneaky scheme at work here is the one that inflates a hollow plot to fill 2¼ hours while banishing skepticism with endless close-ups of big, beautiful movie-star eyes . . . Gibson, delivering one of the hearty, dynamic star turns that have made him the Peter Pan of the blockbuster set, makes Jerry much more boyishly likable than he deserves to be. The man who talks to himself and mails long, delusional screeds to strangers is not usually the dreamboat type . . . After the story enjoys creating real intrigue . . . it becomes tied up in knots. As with too many high-concept escapades, Conspiracy Theory tacks on a final half-hour of hasty explanations and mock-sincere emotion. The last scene is an outright insult to anyone who took the movie seriously at its start."

Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly graded the film B- and commented, "Richard Donner . . . switches the movie from a really interesting, jittery, literate, and witty tone poem about justified contemporary paranoia (and the creatively unhinged dark side of New York City) to an overloaded, meandering iteration of a Lethal Weapon project that bears the not-so-secret stamp of audience testing and tinkering."

In the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle stated, "If I were paranoid I might suspect a conspiracy at work in the promoting of this movie - to suck in audiences with a catchy hook and then give them something much more clumsy and pedestrian . . . Conspiracy Theory can be enjoyed once one gives up hope of its becoming a thinking person's thriller and accepts it as just another diversion . . . When all else fails, there are still the stars to look at - Roberts, who actually manages to do some fine acting, and Gibson, whose likability must be a sturdy thing indeed."

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times observed the film "cries out to be a small film - a quixotic little indie production where the daffy dialogue and weird characters could weave their coils of paranoia into great offbeat humor. Unfortunately, the parts of the movie that are truly good are buried beneath the deadening layers of thriller cliches and an unconvincing love story . . . If the movie had stayed at ground level - had been a real story about real people - it might have been a lot better, and funnier. All of the energy is in the basic material, and none of it is in a romance that is grafted on like an unneeded limb or superfluous organ."

In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers said, "The strong impact that Gibson makes as damaged goods is diluted by selling Jerry as cute and redeemable. Instead of a scalding brew of mirth and malice, served black, Donner settles up a tepid latte, decaf. What a shame - Conspiracy Theory could have been a contender."

Todd McCarthy of Variety called the film "a sporadically amusing but listless thriller that wears its humorous, romantic and political components like mismatched articles of clothing . . . This is a film in which all things . . . are treated lightly, even glibly . . . One can readily sympathize with . . . the director's desire to inject the picture with as much humor as possible. But he tries to have it every which way in the end, and the conflicting moods and intentions never mesh comfortably."

On the film review website Rotten Tomatoes, the film only obtained 52% positive reviews among the 42 reviewers counted by the website in the "T-metric" system.

In his 2003 book A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, political scientist Michael Barkun notes that a vast popular audience has been introduced by the film to the notion that the U.S. government is controlled by a secret team in black helicopters — a view once confined to the radical right.