Taglines: What if your most paranoid nightmares had just come true?
Conspiracy Theory movie stoyline. 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.
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,[1] but critical reviews were mixed.
Early in the film, Jerry Fletcher expounds on a number of his theories to a succession of taxi passengers. On one of the featurettes included on the DVD release of the film, director Richard Donner claims these scenes were ad-libbed by Mel Gibson. The extras acting as passengers were not told what Gibson was going to say because Donner wanted their reactions to be as spontaneous and realistic as possible.
The film was shot on location in and around New York City. Sites included Times Square, Union Square, Greenwich Village, the Queensboro Bridge, Roosevelt Island, and the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York. The soundtrack includes “Just Maintain” by Xzibit, “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by The Police, and two renditions of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”, one by Frankie Valli and the other by Lauryn Hill.
Conspiracy Theory was released August 8, 1997 to 2,806 theaters, and had an opening weekend gross of $19,313,566 in the United States. The film opened at number 1 in the U.S., displacing Air Force One. The film eventually grossed $75,982,834 in the U.S. and $61,000,000 internationally, for a worldwide total of $136,982,834. This final gross made Conspiracy Theory the 19th highest-grossing film in the U.S. in 1997.
Conspiracy Theory (1997)
Directed by: Richard Donner
Starring: Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, Patrick Stewart, Cylk Cozart, Steve Kahan, Terry Alexander, Alex McArthur, Michael Potts, Saxon Trainor, Rich Hebert
Screenplay by: Brian Helgeland
Production Design by: Paul Sylbert
Cinematography by: John Schwartzman
Film Editing by: Kevin Stitt, Frank J. Urioste
Costume Design by: Ha Nguyen
Set Decoration by: Casey Hallenbeck
Art Direction by: Gregory Bolton
Music by: Carter Burwell
MPAA Rating: R for some violence.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: August 8, 1997
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