Possibly after winning an Academy Award with Braveheart, Gibson believed he could play any character. But he's in way over his head in this movie. Early on, it becomes clear that Gibson will never really become believable as a mentally-challenged cab driver, but I kept hoping the movie would be fun nonetheless. However, Conspiracy Theory just continues to become more wildly improbable with each scene. Before long, Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson fall in love, she fires off gunshots at her foes, and she knocks two guys unconscious. Julia Roberts as an action star?

Director Richard Donner has fashioned a big, action blockbuster along the lines of his Lethal Weapon movies, but this type of approach only jerks the characters around at the service of a hokey plot. Conspiracy Theory is sort of like The Manchurian Candidate without any plausibility. We even get Patrick Stewart doing his impression of Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man. That's part of the problem with this movie: everything feels as if we've seen it before. Ultimately, Conspiracy Theory is perfect material for a big, goofy comic book-like approach, but Donner doesn't know how to embrace the material's hokiness. He gives us a big, clumsy, conventional action tale that holds no surprises. Even when the screenplay provides an interesting idea, such as Jerry Fletcher's obsession with Catcher in the Rye (he compulsively purchases the book whenever he sees it), Donner only uses the idea to create some pre-fabricated poignancy and then he rushes away for some more action.

Conspiracy Theory is a tolerable but unspectacular movie until it starts showing us that Jerry's fears are real. Someone is really after him. Instead of toying with the suspense--has Jerry really stumbled upon a conspiracy?--Donner gives away the plot and that only leaves us with chases and explosions and gun fire. Conventional noisy stuff. That's the biggest problem with this movie: Donner strips away character so all that remains are the pyrotechnics--as if Donner is only comfortable as a filmmaker when helicopters are swirling around the actors and grenade launchers are blowing buildings into splinters.

To justify its huge 130 minute running time, Donner has built Conspiracy Theory into a bloated suspense/thriller--regardless of how that approach trounces on the character of Jerry Fletcher and makes the entire movie ludicrous. Conspiracy Theory is a huge disappointment.