Anything with conspiracy in its title and you've pretty much got my attention immediately. That's not to say I'm some sort of mad conspiracy theorist (cos they ain't theories), but any fiction based on some of the common "theories" have to make good viewing. Tony Scott's ENEMY OF THE STATE or the Mel Gibson starrer CONSPIRACY THEORY are good examples because they put those popular conspiracies into the minds of your average cinema-goer who probably never really thinks about such things. Of course, in Mel's case, making the spokesman slightly unhinged doesn't help the cause and perpetuates the myth that conspiracy theorists are mad. They are also dated and lack the latest favourite, 9/11 and the WTC. However, ECHELON CONSPIRACY follows a different tack because its main premise is based on something we are only too familiar with - constant surveillance.

In Britain, the country with possibly the largest number of CCTVs per capita in the world, we are almost inured to the big brother society, as we are constantly being told that it is for our own security. This monitoring not only applies to cameras but also e-mails, internet activity, phone calls and all other forms of digital and electronic communication such as credit card activity, travel and so on. How much of this data gets stored we are not told, but if someone could get access to it they would know a hell of a lot about us.

So imagine that someone sends you a smartphone that starts giving you instructions and those instructions completely change your fortunes. That's what happens to computer security expert Max Peterson (Shane West) when a phone is mysteriously delivered to him at the hotel where he is staying, and the text messages he receives lead him to major wins in a casino, which starts attracting the attention of the CIA and other nefarious organisations, who are out to stop or kill him.

This straight-to-DVD movie is by no means some dud, low-budget B-movie, and is better than some films of a similar ilk that get a theatrical release. There are plenty of action sequences and exotic locations that make it a bit like a poor man's Bourne. It has a decent cast that includes Edward Burns, Ving Rhames, Jonathan Pryce and Martin Sheen, and a solid story concept, even if it is a little predictable in places and the dialogue has a tendency to cliché, but that's Hollywood. Although the story is resolved I could easily see this stretched out into a decent TV series simply by reducing the explosions and exotic locations. It could either follow the different characters that received one of the aforementioned phones, or make Max's story a bit longer, either way it could have legs, but it still works as a movie.

So we have this fairly decent conspiracy movie that has gone straight to DVD but it is only available from Asda. Now, I may seem a little prejudiced here, but I can't see the average Asda shopper being that interested in a movie that is all about government surveillance, bearing in mind that Asda is owned by Wal-Mart, a company with dubious record of surveillance on its staff, customers and detractors as well as being a major party in the Dead Peasants Insurance scandal. However, as it is being marketed as a story about a mobile phone that brings you wealth at casinos, the pairing makes sense, but the irony isn't lost.

ECHELON THEORY is released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 4, exclusively from Asda. It will be available from Play and other retailers in January 2011.