MK Ultra was a top secret US government program to test mind control techniques on people.
The words secret and test are the key there.
Lots of the MK Ultra program was voluntary (still kind of appalling), but this film focuses on something that always happens when you make things secret and throw money at it. You get abuses by the type of person attracted to acting out their worst fantasies.
Without giving away spoilers, the Dr Strauss (Anson Mount) is genuine in his desire to research whether LSD can help those with mental illness, addictions etc. He struggles to get funding. A benefactor shows up and Strauss slowly begins to realise his mistake.
Thankfully the film relies on showing not telling. It lets you try to work out what's happening. The result is an intense, grubby and depressing look at the darker parts of the MK Ultra story.
One criticism is that the beginning has a scene linking the program to race. The rest of the film is obvious that it wasn't about race. No-one was spared - MK Ultra even preyed on their own CIA agents. The scene was a cheap addition and the film is better than that. Also, the film kind of skips over the role Doctors played in the outright abuses of MK Ultra. The doctor here tries to correct his mistake. The real ones were quite happy to benefit.
Just like many of the worst excesses in human history, doctors (who should know better) involved themselves in the MK Ultra abuses in full knowledge of what was being done.
Should you watch it? Yes. While you're at it... look up the facts of MK Ultra. It's not a conspiracy theory. Lots of conspiracy nonsense was built around it, but the program itself and the abuses that went along with it were very real.
