Echelon Conspiracy

Starring: Shane West, Edward Burns, & Ving Rhames

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

For the first 40 minutes, I was mesmerized by this film. The beginning was as thrilling and intriguing as any film I'd seen all year, but after that, the big secret is revealed and it became almost a shot for shot remake of Eagle Eye. It was seriously ridiculous how the two stories became almost exactly alike. Realizing this, the writers decided to throw in a big twist at the end, that might have saved the film had it made even a single bit of sense. Echelon Conspiracy begins with computer programer, Max Petersen (Shane West), anonymously receiving a brand new, state of the art, cell phone in the mail. The phone gives him instructions which lead to him winning a lot of money. Everything is going great for Max, until he disobeys the phones wishes and the FBI shows up. Shane West was fantastic in this film, it really makes me wonder why he doesn't do more stuff like this. West seems to prefer romantic dramas, but is clearly missing his true calling. After seeing a performance like this, I'd easily put him at the top of the list for any major action film. West was paired in this film with Edward Burns who was terrific and Ving Rhames who was Ving Rhames. I say that, because sometimes he's the perfect fit for a role and other times, he couldn't be more out of place, a perfect example of which is his role in this film. As I said, this movie starts out great, but becomes exactly like Eagle Eye, I would venture to say that the two films are so much a like that the producers of Eagle Eye have a case for copyright infringement, it really was that close. Besides that, the film was a decent action film, with some nice performances. Had I not seen Eagle Eye, I may have thought more of this film, but as it stands, Echelon Conspiracy is just another low budget rip off of a semi-decent major motion picture and not much else.