There are more holes in Conspiracy Theory than in, well, your average conspiracy theory. Even while you're watching it, you're thinking, this makes no sense. But who cares? It stars Mel Gibson, the US$20 million (HK$155 million) man, and Julia Roberts, the US$12 million woman, and they could make Baywatch Nights watchable, if not enjoyable. Not only does Conspiracy Theory star Gibson, but it features him doing madness, which is one of his best and most convincing performances - it's the backbone of Riggs in Lethal Weapon, and even made for a decent Hamlet. And he's crazy as a cut snake for most of Conspiracy Theory. This film, directed by Lethal Weapon 's Richard Donner and produced by action maestro Joel Silver, takes a classic cat-and-mouse chase format - the only difference being that there are many cats, and they don't always miaow. Conspiracy Theory deals with 'us and them' - the paranoia accompanying the powerlessness people feel in today's society, and that deep-seated suspicion we do not control our own destinies. It's a subject with a lot of potential - The X-Files has spun it out for four years - and in the beginning, at least, Conspiracy Theory is almost repulsively fascinating. Gibson plays typical fruit-and-nutcase New York cab driver Jerry Fletcher, a loony tune who spins elaborate tales of international conspiracies to horrified fares (the opening sequence, when he veers from the Vatican to JFK and Castro, is particularly inspired). Jerry is scary; he may be played by Gibson, but he carries overtones of De Niro's Travis Bickle. You would not want to hail his cab. Jerry, who lives in a supremely padlocked apartment, is obviously mentally ill. He forms an obsession with Justice Department attorney Alice (Roberts), who deals resignedly with his office visits. Alice is harbouring her own obsession - the unsolved murder of her father, a federal judge. Just when Conspiracy Theory is looming off in one, very interesting, direction, Donner rapidly directs it back on to more familiar ground - that of a conventional thriller. Jerry, we discover, is being fed drugs and tortured by government psychiatrist Dr Jonas (Patrick Stewart). But why? Jerry is pulled in strange directions - he feels obliged to buy Catcher in the Rye (the J D Salinger novel which has inspired many lunatics, including John Lennon's murderer), even though he's never heard of it. He's sure everybody is out to get him, and he may be right. The film's main problem is that Jerry is, at least initially, so far out there that the solutions to his problems have to be equally in the realm of the fantastic. An unmarked helicopter dropping assassins into Times Square without anybody noticing? You'd have to be as crazy as Jerry to buy into that one. And so, Conspiracy Theory moves into the ridiculous but still we keep watching, because Gibson has star power in spades, and what he lacks Roberts makes up for. The whole idea of nutcase Jerry and tightly wound Alice forming an alliance against 'them' is totally unbelievable, but Roberts is so prettily sympathetic and Mel is so, well, blue-eyed and handsome and down-on-his-luck (why hasn't Jerry tried modelling?) that you just yearn for them to get together. After happily sitting through the load of codswallop this ultimately is, I understand why Gibson is paid US$20 million per picture and may nab US$24 million for his next, Lethal Weapon 4. He's a star, that's why. And he can make us fork out for amiable nonsense like Conspiracy Theory without even a murmur of complaint. Conspiracy Theory opens on October 2