Stoic

Tl;dr: Ignore the spammed rating, we all know Uwe Boll is a reliably terrible director, but he pulled off this one good film in his life. Good acting, good premise, believable characters who's motives are understandable given the context. It's pretty bleak, but if that's what you're into, it's a great way to spend an hour and half.

If I have any complaints about the movie, it's in the editing and (lack of) script. First of all, the movie is frequently intercut with interviews/interrogations of the surviving inmates. However, there is nobody in the movie actually questioning them. Often they'll answer a question and the audience doesn't have any context. It's my understanding that much of this film was improvised, which really helped the conversational madness of the scenes in the cell. But occasionally, you could tell an actor was stuck trying to think of something to say, which leaves a few awkward pauses and strange phrasing.

Other than that, for a movie that mostly takes place in a single room, it's quite entertaining. The pacing is great; you'll never be bored. There's some great acting, especially from Sam Levinson who you truly believe is traumatized. In his interview segments, he gives a very emotional performance. He acted with his hands a bit too much, but other than that, I'm shocked he hasn't done more serious mainstream dramatic roles.

The worst performance comes from John Connor from Terminator 2 (once I realized who he was, that's all I could think of him as). He's not terrible, but he plays the most remorseless character, so it seems like he's trying too hard to be a generic sociopath. The German dude was pretty good too.

Obviously the movie is dark and depressing, but if that's the kind of thing you're into, I highly recommend it.

I have seen only more 1 movie directed by this director, and that was Seed. That movie was pretty tame and boring, this was an pretty interesting watch. There is no bright segment in this entire movie. From the start to finish it's just a pure black terror of a movie.

I can say that the acting for the most part is pretty solid. I can't really fault any of the actors. The story is thin as it is, 4 inmates, and they decide to horribly torture the weakest one, who was only in prison for 6 months for trying to defuse arrest, while the three other guys are in prison for serious crimes such as Arson.

The only negative i got for this movie is the lack of depth. None of our characters have any depth, as in instead of giving us at the end the reason why these people were in prison, maybe give us a 5-10 minutes long backstory about all 4 of these guys, what caused them to get in prison in first place. Also the fact that they said at the start of the movie, that the victim took his own life, it really removed the shock for the ending. I think that they should of cut off the hanging at beginning, because it weakened the ending. I think it would of been much more stronger if the ending occured without us knowing it at the start.

Ultimately i actually enjoyed this movie and it is a very interesting psychological piece into 4 different types of people. Also this movie the social aspect of it is not just in prisons, i think similar stuff occur outside prison as well.

Stoic is a 2009 film directed by Uwe Boll about four cellmates and a poker game that goes from bad to worse, to horrific. It's unnerving, disturbing, and sad.

Stoic is the kind of movie that if you watch it at all, you will probably only watch it once. Because, although the acting in the film is very good the stories subject matter is very difficult to sit through. The characters are raw and unapologetic, The setting will make you feel claustrophobic, and the end will leave you speechless.

This is not a film that I can say I enjoy, but if you like hard to watch movies then this is one that you shouldn't be disappointed with.

I speak only in terms of atmosphere, so realistic and unbearable, disgusting but so awfully true atmosphere behind bars. Because the plot itself is certainly closer to BULLY than SCUM, which was more focused on another scheme. Well, this movie is the best of Uwe Boll, a film maker too long underrated, despised, who shows here his real talent, his skills. He is a very gifted film maker, he proves it here in the best way. But, as you can guess, it is not destined to wide audiences. It is such a shame that all Uwe Boll's films did not look like this one, not in terms of story but directing. It belongs, for me, to the best behind bars films ever made, the most underrated too.

I don't really get all the Uwe Boll bashers out there. I don't watch his video game films because, quite frankly, I think if you want to have a video game experience you should PLAY a video game. Call me crazy.

I watched "Stoic" because I loved "Rampage"---I loved the originality of it, I admired it's clarity of vision, and I liked the outlandishness of the piece. Boll's "I-don't-give-a-f***" attitude definitely did show through in that hyper-violent orgasm and it does so again with "Stoic."

What's odd about "Stoic" is that it would almost play better as a stage production. It's based on a real event that occurred in a German prison, where a harmless dare escalated into deadly consequence. It's really pretty simple, as Sam Levinson states in the preamble: "This system doesn't work!" And why should it? You put four guys in one small room, with varying degrees of maladaptive personalities, subject them to endless tedium and little activity---what do you think would happen? There is a reason why most US prisons don't do four-to-a-cell, after all.

The acting is very good for the most part (Levinson gets a bit melodramatic, but it's passable). Furlong is creepily chilling in his passive-aggressiveness. It's not the type of movie that generates a lot of tension (probably why few people like it). It does generate DREAD however and it isn't pleasant to watch even in a sicko-torture-porn type of way...there are no "oh wow" EFX...it's just...degrading. Would I watch it again? Probably not. Would I recommend it to my parents? Hell no.

Yet, I find myself giving it a relatively high-score. For those interested in how group dynamics tend to obliterate the ability or desire to think for one's self, "Stoic" is an relatively bold statement. One wonders if Boll was thinking of his rubber-stamping detractors when he made it.