I bought this DVD during the blitz sales when Tower Records was going out of business. It looked interesting enough to buy for $5.00, but now that I have watched it, I would have been just as happy paying full price.
The performances were mostly above par, with a few exceptionally believable characters. The production was excellent, as was the directing. What makes this film stand out is being based on a true story of yet another infamous CIA excursion into ruining people's lives. What I was shocked to find out about was how the Canadian government fit into it all as well. The MK- Ultra tests are now infamous, even if primarily to conspiracy theorists. However, this particular test was one that they admitted, and theoretically apologized for.
The film is a bit long, but captivating, at just around 3 hours. The story begins with the patients at a mental hospital with a doctor trying to cope with his own ego and feelings of inadequacies. When he realizes the usefulness of psychotropic drugs and other invasive techniques, he believes he is helping mankind, while unwittingly (at the start) helping the CIA perfect torture techniques while using unwitting human test subjects. Later, after the film establishes the horrors and introduces you to the characters, it switches to the attorneys who take on the CIA in a court case to get admission to fault, and compensation to the remaining victims. A sad story by the end, but one that will last in your mind. Exceptional.
