Conspiracy Theory (1997)

Film: Conspiracy Theory (1997)

Stars: Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, Patrick Stewart

Director: Richard Donner

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 (and now 2025) Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Julia Roberts: click here to learn more about Ms. Roberts (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

You'll notice above that Mel Gibson got top billing over Julia Roberts, and that's not a mistake, nor is it sexism.  Headed into 1997, Gibson was the far bigger star of the two.  Gibson was finishing up a decade-long run as one of the biggest stars in America, including nabbing a pair of Oscars for the box office smash Braveheart, and was indisputably one of the most bankable actors in Hollywood.  Julia Roberts, as we discussed last week, had not had a proper hit since 1993's The Pelican Brief.  But that was about to change in 1997, when Roberts would stage one of the most impressive runs in Hollywood history.  You could argue, quite frankly, that Conspiracy Theory isn't a good enough example of this era, but because these movies are so ubiquitous it's the only one that qualifies for this series because it's the only one I haven't seen.

It started out with the romantic scheming of My Best Friend's Wedding, a huge comeback vehicle that out-earned the far more expensive Speed 2: Cruise Control which opened a week earlier (starring Roberts' then rom-com rival Sandra Bullock).  In the years that followed, she would continue to invest in the bread-and-butter that had launched her stardom, alternating between female-driven dramas and romantic-comedies like Stepmom, Runaway Bride, Notting Hill, and 2000's Erin Brockovich which finally won her an Oscar.  Roberts would come out swinging after securing an Academy Award with a trio of hits in 2001 (The Mexican, America's Sweethearts, & Ocean's Eleven).  Nine hit movies, most of them liked by critics, in the span of five years...America's Sweetheart had come back from potential footnote status and was once again the most bankable (and highest-paid) actress in Hollywood.

(Spoilers Ahead) But we have a movie to discuss, and it's a weird one in this list, though it does put Roberts in a romance with a big-name leading man.  Jerry Fletcher (Gibson) is a taxi driver who spends his days spouting crackpot theories to his ambivalent customers, and then goes home to a claustrophobic apartment filled with locks, newspaper clippings, and countless copies of The Catcher in the Rye (side note-I am in love with what they do with Gibson's apartment in this movie, and think it does SUCH good work in helping you get to know a sometimes underwritten character...kudos).  His only friend is Alice Sutton (Roberts), a Justice Department lawyer who has a soft spot for him because he once saved her life.  But a third of the way through the movie, he's kidnapped and tortured by Jonas (Stewart), a man channeling Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man who works for some covert organization we (along with Jerry & Alice) try to understand.

Here's the thing about Conspiracy Theory-it doesn't make a lot of sense.  The twists aren't particularly interesting decades later, when the idea of a man making up lies about the government feels less like that one uncle at Thanksgiving everyone tries not to sit next to and more like your congressman talking on Fox News.  Combine that with the role being played by Mel Gibson, an actor that, even if you're a fan of his (separate-the-artist-from-his) work, it's hard not to see the real life parallels that 1997 audiences wouldn't have caught yet, and you have a film that flirts with unlikable and convoluted for stretches of its (too long) runtime.

But I did like it, and I think that has to do with the way that the film centers around Roberts & Gibson's ample chemistry.  In a modern film like this, they'd be friends, but because a thriller starring two attractive people in the 1990's is going to have them kiss, we get a romance, and this makes it far more enjoyable.  Even if you struggle to root for Jerry, cheering on Alice is easy, and you learn to love that Jerry is the good kind of bad-for-her.  This is the sort of movie that doesn't get made today because it doesn't have established IP and we don't really cultivate brand name movie stars like Roberts & Gibson (not to mention that in a very sexless cinema, we've stripped out proper romance in everything from Snow White to Twisters unless absolutely necessary), but you watch this and understand why movie stars used to rule Hollywood: they provide an insurance policy for a script that doesn't really work (something that Iron Man or the Human Torch is never going to be able to do).