Straight from the backalleys of Bangkok and into my hands came this little direct2video, b-grade SF gem. A film that IMDB says was first released in Kazakhstan!
Echelon Conspiracy is the tale of an AI, the NSA’s Echelon supercomputer, that remote controls several foolish humans so that it can affect it’s escape into a vacant server-farm and upgrade itself.
It tricks the humans by using it’s knowledge of everything! to give them instant financial reward, thus training them to do it’s bidding, then killing them off when they’ve accomplish their part in it’s scheme.
The main character receives a mysterious, advanced phone in a delivery to his hotel. Via anonymous text messages he receives his instructions.
Fly to Prague, it says.. richs awaits you there! So off he goes.
It then leads him around by the nose in a casino, telling him how much to bet, where and exactly when.
His ridiculous success immediately attracts the attention of the casino security; enter Edward Burns to do his best ex-FBI agent, now lone wolf. And Ving Rhames, his ex-partner, who shows up to take all the glory.
But the real fun is watching this main character (a horrible, forgettable actor, who clearly failed at the Kenau Reeves school of ‘acting’) stumble around, increasingly dependant on his SMSed instructions, often just standing their like an un-attended video game character. Because that’s how the AI controls him, that’s the great inversion, reality as one big game, humans being the physical agents of an all-seeing, all-knowing entity.
This had me once more thinking about the likelihood of a Twitter-based serial killer, or terrorist even, emerging. Just how easy is it to train people to obey text messages they receive, and how much damage could be done that way? Start by giving them financial rewards, then make the tasks more obscure. Two or three remote-control drones and mayhem could ensue. Definitely something to watch out for!
Of course in the end, it’s the human that teaches the AI a lesson that saves the world from becoming the ultimate surveillance state.
But the film’s not done there, because the ace Russian hacker turns out to be an upstanding Russian KGB/FSB agent, working to save the world from the crazy Americans and their worship of all things technological and advanced. How subversive; fancy the US being schooled by their ColdWar-era enemies!
Also, special mention goes to the love interest, the clear best on field, played by Tamara Feldman. Watching her kick ass was a thing to behold.
This film punches well above it’s weight, and is ten times better than the Hollywood blockbuster schlock I’ve been subjected to (and disappointed by) of late. A worthy addition to the future-present cyberpunk cannon.
