Matt Kracht The plot: A former marine, trying to find out what happened to his friend, runs up against racist vigilantes.I've never actually been that big of a Val Kilmer fan, but I'm willing to watch his movies. Unfortunately, as some people have already mentioned, this movie shares more than a few similarities to Steven Seagal's direct-to-video movies. It's got a left-leaning political message, an aging and out-of-shape movie star, and some truly awful dialogue.I'm not going to lie. This is not a good movie. It's completely lacking in subtlety, one of the characters goes on a long political rant in the middle of the movie, and the fight choreography was not very impressive. However, I agree with the politics, I like Gary Cole, and I guess I'm a sucker for these cheesy direct-to-video movies. I'm willing to overlook a lot of things as long as I don't get bored.I can't really recommend this movie to other people, but I found it a lot more tolerable than most reviewers. If you're a liberal, you're looking to waste 90 minutes, and you're a fan of Val Kilmer... well, maybe then you might want to see this movie, but you'd still have to be pretty desperate.

Rodrigo Amaro "Conspiracy" has Val Kilmer playing an traumatized Marine who searches for his best friend, another Marine, who disappeared in a small town where no one seems to know about him and are not warm in terms of welcoming people who are not from there. The local residents of this city à-la Old West style built by a powerful businessman (Gary Cole) will do anything to bother Kilmer and his obstinate search.An more experienced viewer will have one title popping on his head while watching this: "Bad Day at Black Rock". Yes, "Conspiracy" amazingly resembles the 1955 film directed by John Sturges starring Spencer Tracy as the mysterious one armed man who defeats a whole town just to deliver an medal to an soldier friend of his. Both stories deal with small towners prejudices against foreigners; both stories have an main character who is handicapped in a way and somehow this isn't an adversity at all; and both plots take place in desert areas. What makes the older film better than the new one (this isn't a remake however) is the originality and the tension presented there, the mystery was more gripping. What is presented in this recent project is an action film with lots of shootings, bullets and knives flying, a simplistic story made to please an large audience who enjoys that kind of movie. Nonetheless, it's a decent and enjoyable action film, the required elements for this genre are all present here, Kilmer is quite good as the Marine who needs to put his demons behind him, after an traumatic event that he testified during the war in Iraq, rebuilding himself in order to find out what happened to his friend. Since most viewers really dislike old films, this is a nice substitute to Sturges film. But that one was an complete classic compared to this. 7/10

Karl Ericsson There seems to be 2 totally different viewpoints in the US. One, that you might call the viewpoint of the lackey and the other that of decency, often referred to as being "socialist" or "lefty". The latter viewpoint does not embrace competition between human beings, where the whole point is to break the spirit of your fellow man, so that he loses the competition. In fact, the decent viewpoint is never to compete with others and instead only compete with yourself for perfection, regardless of what other men or women are doing. The doings of others is then only interesting, when it is a reminder of your own imperfection, such as, for instance, the heroism of the handicapped and downtrodden who do not give up on living decently, which always brings a decent man to shame, who is not handicapped in any way. The doings of the others, the rich of birth and their lackeys, who are properly portrayed in this film as the villains, is instead a reminder for the decent man, that there is still much to be done. This is an anti-American film, if "americanism" means glorifying business and treat market-economy as if it was a gospel and the measure for all things good. Business-men never invented anything but their money could, so far, always buy the inventors, such as the Germans being bought to land a human being on the moon and all that has followed since. But maybe will the time come when the inventors will not let themselves be bought... Let's hope so and let then the only important fight begin, which sadly, judging from some of the reviews on this film, will be necessary.

staceyjoyce1224 I think a lot of us are being too harsh! I thought Val Kilmer did a great job. He came off depressed because his character WAS depressed: trying to integrate back into society after going through what he did would be unimaginable, and even worse when suffering from PTSD. He seems distracted because he is constantly fighting old battles in his head. I thought when he was being intimidated by the evil Rhodes in the diner his attitude was perfect: This is NOTHING compared to situations he's been through and Rhodes does not even matter to him. Yes, the plot was a bit predictable but wasn't it just oh so satisfying when he cuts off the disgusting E.B.'s fingers and shoots out his knee? And I think this story does have political significance. I'm Canadian but it still deeply disturbs me to ponder how companies like Halliburton make their billions. I agree with others who say that this movie most likely lost some of its lustre in the editing room. Another element I didn't care for was the undercover deputy. It just didn't quite come off quite right and I would have preferred MacPherson to kick ass by himself. All in all I am willing to overlook all that because of Val's intriguing performance. I don't think he half-assed it at all, in fact I think he hit the character right on the head.