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Movie:		3.0
Picture:		5.0
Sound:		5.0
Extras:		1.0
Score:		4.0

Director(s):	Greg Marcks
Writer(s):	Michael Nitsberg and Kevin Elders
Starring:	Ed Burns • Jonathan Pryce • Martin Sheen • Shane West • Tamara Feldman • Ving Rhames
Genre:	Thriller
Website:	http://www.echelonconspiracy.com/
Release Date:	July 21, 2009
Rated:

List Price:	DVD - $19.99
Amazon:

With its thunder somewhat stolen by Steven Spielberg and Co’s similarly plotted, infinitely superior techie romp Eagle Eye, this poor budget, poorly imagined cousin found its wide release slashed to a handful of theaters on its way to what is sure to be a long and productive shelf life as a staple of the Wal*Mart $5 bin. Billed as a “tech-charged conspiracy thriller” Echelon Conspiracy skirts dangerously close to violating the Trades Descriptions Act, as the closest this colossal borefest will take you to the edge of your seat is if you happen to slide off it having nodded off.

Echelon Conspiracy finds IT security consultant Max Peterson (Shane West of ER fame) inexplicably embroiled in a global conspiracy via a series of mysterious and prophetic text messages from an anonymous sender. From Bangkok, to Prague to Washington D.C Peterson becomes a pawn of Martin Sheen’s shady NSA suit and finds himself pursued by Ving Rhames's FBI agent, and a target of Ed Burns's former-Fed-turned casino security boss.

It’s every bit as absurdly convoluted as it sounds and at the same time unforgivably dull, pivoting itself on several preposterous points of coincidence and monumental poor judgment. If you’re willing to buy that anyone in their right mind would suddenly obey random and bizarre instructions from a cell phone, instructions such as “Fly to Prague,” then perhaps this movie might entice you; or if you’re able to swallow the notion that the FBI would be scurrying around foreign countries unescorted, with apparent free reign to conduct intricate sting operations; Or that a cab driver just happens to be a telecommunications expert who can unscramble data that has the NSA chasing their tails - then maybe Echelon Conspiracy is for you. This last one is a bridge too far even for the producers, who qualify it with a meaningless and utterly confounding epilogue that only serves to further highlight the giant chasms in internal logic that both run vast and deep.

West certainly doesn’t help matters by playing Peterson as such a self-satisfied, smug git that it’s almost impossible to get behind him as the ice quickly melts beneath his feet and he swiftly realizes how far in over his head he truly is. But even with government agencies, rogue hit squads, exotic locales, and the politically charged backdrop of a government sponsored surveillance program conducted by an out of control AI, the lack of imagination on display here is mind-boggling. After taking what seems like an age to set things up precious little actually happens and much of the runtime is devoted to the makeshift triangle alliance of Rhames, Burns, and West explaining the ridiculous plot to one another while Martin Sheen sits in his glass office exuding all the menace of one of the less memorable 24 villains.

Peripheral characters with potential such as Jonathan Pryce’s enigmatic casino boss are never fully integrated into the story; meanwhile Tamara Feldman’s female agent is so crowbarred in she might as well have “script note” written across her forehead. That said she is responsible for Echelon Conspiracy’s single entertaining scene which sees her scrap Jason Bourne style with a hitman while Peterson cowers in the bathtub just a few feet away.

Director Greg Marcks just knows better than this and his breakout, pretzel-plotted indie 11:14 was an imaginative exercise in escalating tension on a shoestring. Here he just seems bored, exhibiting a purely functional point-and-shoot style where even the car chases and bloodless PG shootouts are rendered as dull and lifeless as the film’s central idea. Honestly, it’s not hard to see how this idea came about and you can almost imagine the meeting along the lines of: “Right, we need a movie targeted at young teens. What are young teens into? Cell phones!” In the end Echelon Conspiracy is the cinematic equivalent of a crap and useless Christmas present your grandmother has bought you, because all she knows about you is that you’re a young teen who is into cell phones.

DVD Bonus Features

None whatsoever.