Conspiracy Theorists Examined

Few things are as tiresome as listening to people rant about their conspiracy theories. While there are, no doubt, tantalizing speculations to be made about the “inside job” that demolished the World Trade Center and the nefarious agenda of the global elite, movies about such things do well to involve James Bond and giant explosions.

“New World Order,” an unrelentingly tedious documentary by Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel, follows a group of considerably less glamorous truth-seekers. The most prominent of the filmmakers’ subjects, the radio host Alex Jones, who is based in Austin, Tex., rails against the powers that be — all of them — in a manner that reinforces every cliché of the conspiracy theorist loon: paranoid, megalomaniacal, delusional, sweaty. The documentary’s most action-packed scene finds Mr. Jones throwing a major hissy fit when his hotel fire alarm goes off, thereby proving, without a shadow of a doubt, that “they” are trying to suppress his revelations.

On the (somewhat) mellower side, Luke Rudowski, a 21-year-old New Yorker, spends all his free time distributing fliers and DVDs purporting to uncover the truth about 9/11. Seth Jackson, a relief worker in Louisiana, does his part by heckling Bill Clinton and other dark overlords. A retired police officer, Jack McLamb, meanwhile, has retreated to the safety of a separatist militia group.

There’s a movie to be made about the psychology of such men, their personal lives and private obsessions. “New World Order” merely gawks at them.

NEW WORLD ORDER

Opens on Friday in Manhattan.

Directed by Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel; directors of photography, Mr. Meyer, Mr. Neel and Ethan Palmer; edited by Nathan S. Caswell; music by Jonn Ollison and Jonah Rapiro; produced by Tom Davis; released by See Think Films and IFC TV. At the Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. This film is not rated.  (NY Times, 5.22.2009, Nathan Lee) http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/movies/22orde.html?ref=movies&pagewanted=print