Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
For the first Disney+ film I saw in 2022, I saw ‘Shadow Conspiracy’, a 1997 film starring Charlie Sheen, Donald Sutherland, Linda Hamilton and Sam Waterston. Now this is a film that apparently was not liked by critics at the time of its release, yet audiences seem to like it a bit more than critics.
After seeing the film on Disney+, I found it engaging. Yeah, it starts off slow at first, but as the film progresses, I found myself getting into the chase aspect of the story more, especially when Charlie Sheen as Bobby Bishop had an unstoppable agent, who could’ve been ‘the Terminator’, chasing him.
The story takes place in Washington, D.C., where a power struggle occurs involving a shadow government. Bobby unravels what’s going on once he’s been shot at and pursued by Stephen Lang playing the ‘Terminator’-like agent. He has help from journalist Amanda Givens to solve this mystery.
I suppose the chase elements of the film overwhelmed the political aspects of the film. Maybe that’s why critics didn’t like it when they saw it. Personally, I enjoyed the chase aspect of the film, especially when Bobby Bishop was on the run and soon helped by Amanda Givens in the second act.
There is a twist featured in the film involving a friend of Bobby Bishop who turns out to be his enemy in this. I must admit, I didn’t see that twist coming when I was watching the film. I suppose the twist did come out of nowhere, but it didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the film whilst I watched it on Disney+.
I saw Charlie Sheen recently in ‘The Three Musketeers’ film with Chris O’Donnell and Tim Curry. I also saw Donald Sutherland, who plays Jacob Conrad in the film, in the 2005 film adaptation of ‘Pride & Prejudice’. It was so intriguing to see him in this political thriller compared to a period drama film.
Linda Hamilton, who plays Amanda Givens, is well-known for playing Sarah Connor in ‘The Terminator’ film series. I haven’t seen ‘The Terminator’ films properly. I enjoyed her performance in ‘Shadow Conspiracy’ and how her character interacted with Charlie Sheen in quite a romantic sense.
As well as Stephen Lang as the Agent (No seriously, that’s what he’s called in this film. Maybe he is a robot since he’s unstoppable in this; never says a word; and never smiles), there’s also Ben Gazzara as Vice President Saxon. Oh no! I couldn’t be…Mr. Saxon! As in…John Simm’s Master from ‘Doctor Who’! 😀
Sam Waterston stars as the President of the United States (and happens to be friends with Bobby Bishop in the film). There’s also Nicholas Turturro as Grasso, Charles Cioffi as General Blackburn, Stanley Anderson as Attorney General Toyanbe and Theodore Bikel as Professor Yuri Pochenko.
There’s Paul Gleason as Blythe, Terry O’Quinn as Frank Ridell, Gore Vidal as Congressman Page and Dey Young as Janet. As far as the cast’s performances are concerned, I feel they all did well. I can’t think of a bad performance on anybody’s part and most of them were quite engaging to watch in the film.
I did read somewhere that the action sequences are boring, but quite frankly, I don’t understand that argument. I enjoyed the action sequences in the film, especially with the car chase scene where the Agent is jumping on the bonnet of the car where Bobby Bishop and Amanda Givens are escaping.
I also enjoyed it and found it tense when Bobby and Amanda were getting inside the White House to discover the shocking truth about the shadow government and who’s behind it. The climatic action sequence of Bobby saving the President’s life and stopping the assassin was really gripping to watch.
I’m currently baffled as to why ‘Shadow Conspiracy’ should be rated poorly by critics whilst a small amount of people like it more than them. I found this a decent action-filled political thriller. Perhaps I’m missing something, but I found ‘Shadow Conspiracy’ worthy to watch when I saw it on Disney+. 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now!
Tim. 🙂
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