Conspiracy Of Fear

Unbeknownst to his son, Chris King (Andrew Lowery), Dr. King (Alan Jordan) is a scientific operative for the CIA. When Dr. King reneges on a deal to sell top-secret data, disappointed foreign buyers hire a hit man, Straker (Geraint Wyn Davies) to kill Dr. King. Straker booby-traps an elevator containing the doctor and Chris; Chris escapes, but his father and an innocent housewife passenger are killed. Chris doesn't realize, however, that the assassin had explicit orders to find a manila envelope addressed to Dr. King--an envelope which Chris forgot to pick up from his doorman the day of the "accident."

Suddenly, Chris is being pumped for info by Dr. King's former boss, Joseph Wakeman (Christopher Plummer) and by Wakeman's imperturbable underling, Raintree (Tony Rosato). A chance acquaintance with a car thief, Jimmie (Leslie Hope), proves fortuitous when the street-smart crook spots Chris being hustled into Straker's van; she pursues in a stolen cab. Although Jimmie helps Chris escape, the cops buy Straker's version of events. At the police station (where Jimmie is a familiar face), Jimmie solicits the aid of Chief Alex Ross (Kenneth Welsh), who is finally convinced to install Jimmie and Chris in a safe motel. Despite the misgivings of CIA agent Patterson (Philip Akin), big-shot Wakeman decides to use Chris as bait to nail Straker. At the motel, Ross is gunned down by Straker, and Patterson is incinerated after Straker ignites his car. By the time Chris figures out that the manila envelope contains a computer disk encoded with top-secret information, Straker has iced the doorman and a homeless pal of Jimmie's at Chris's building. Chris and Jimmie race to the post office, where it was returned after Chris neglected to pick it up. After obliterating two punks who get in his way, Straker stabs Wakeman in the neck and pursues his prey to a building's scaffold. Although he snatches the retrieved envelope from Chris, Chris knocks Straker over the scaffolding. When Raintree later questions him, Chris denies pocketing a disk from the envelope. Cognizant of the peril coded into this coveted disk, Chris tosses the top secret info into the ocean, with Jimmie's approval.

This circuitously-plotted item waits until its midpoint to introduce the utterly unnecessary character of CIA agent Patterson--to no apparent purpose. Instead of subtly peaking our interest about the motives of callous Wakeman or shifty-looking Raintree, the filmmakers only serve to confuse matters with too many tenuously related plot strands. As for Straker, the villain of the piece, he's as anonymous as the masked bogeyman in a slasher pic. Director John Eyres (who's also responsible for 1996's horrendous JUDGE & JURY) has no interest in designing a suspense arc or in toning down his actors. His specialty is slam-bang-thank-you-ma'am assault sequences. To give the devil his due, the film's first key set-piece, the fatal elevator plunge, is expertly shot. One wishes that other key pursuit scenes measured up to Eyres's opening salvo. (Graphic violence, extreme profanity, adult situations.) leave a comment