The Experiment (2010)
Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker star in this film based on a German film, based on a novel inspired by the 1971 Stanford prison experiment. A bunch of men are selected for a behaviour study and set up as prisoners and guards in a remote location.
This film went straight to DVD so there should be no surprises there are a number of problems with it. The major problem with the plot is that the observes are supposed to stop the experiment as soon as there is any violence but only do so on the second occasion with no reason as to why. They follow the usual cliché of making the conservative a guard who becomes a fascist and the liberal a prisoner who stands up to him, how imaginative.
It is a real shame this film is so poorly written as it has the potential to be a really good film There is supposed to be a red light that will signal the end of the experiment if the guards do not punish prisoners with in 30 minutes of them breaking a rule but the writing never plays of the potential tension of arguments between the guards and waiting for the time to run down on the light. The progression from normal people to sadist guards is also so quick as to be unbelievable, it would have been much better to see a slower escalation of events rather than just have the guards flip out at the first minor action.
2/5 a really poor attempt at an interesting set up
No comments:
Post a Comment