Compliance

"Compliance" is a shockingly terrifying film. As I watched the events unfold on the screen, knowing that they were tightly based off a true story, I had difficulty maintaining my breathing. With a sinister visual style from the start, filled with tight macro shots and a simply greasy aura, as well as powerful performances from all of the cast members, most exceptionally Ann Dowd, "Compliance" transcends from its fast-food setting into something much darker, and much more haunting. The abuse of the young cashier is repulsive. "How could you do that?!" you will continually wonder, wishing the words would escape your head in the form of a scream. This film is frustrating, vexing, and equally engrossing, almost as if the story itself doesn't satisfy man's need for vicarious horror. "Compliance" forces me to question my fate in humanity and the limits of the 7 billion people with whom I share this Earth. Ultimately this film is a sickening narrative, a narrative I might as well wish I had never seen. Must you watch this? No. Is this a vital piece of cinema? No. Is "Compliance" paralyzing, appalling, thought provoking, and, most brutally, true? More than you could ever imagine.

I was scam-called by someone pretending to be a cop once. He claimed my wife had skipped jury duty. It was quite convincing for about 10 minutes, and then I realized what he was asking me to do made no sense, so I told him they'd just have to come and put my wife in jail, as he had threatened to do. At that point he became angry and revealed himself for the scammer he was.

The point is, any one of even slightly below average intelligence would have questioned this 'cop' well before things got to where they did. Everyone involved in the incident was a complete moron. That being said, that's not on the actors and filmmakers, as they were just portraying what supposedly happened, and I think they did it well. But you will not be able to watch this without getting extremely ticked, especially at the manager.

After watching this movie i just couldn't believe it was based on a true story. It boggled my mind that a group of people could be this stupid. In BIG disbelief i searched the net to see if this was really true or just loosely based on a true story. I found proof that it was totally true. Every aspect of the story was true. ABC even did a story about these events with interviews with the manager and the young girl. Also showing actual footage of the events.

The movie is not bad. The characters to a good job. But you will spend more time with your mouth open in disbelief of whats happening then actually enjoying the movie. It really is disturbing.

I lasted less than halfway through this thing. HOW can people be such idiots? For DECADES, we have had television police procedurals. Common sense should have prevented ANY of this from happening,

My walk-away? "GOD, these people vote!"

"Compliance" is a movie that requires RAMPANT stupidity and naivete. I don't think it is calculable the amount of pure unadulterated stupidity that is required for the events of this movie to occur. What's sad is that I believe that such events could occur. I do believe that you could easily get four or five morons to go along with such a patently illegal and perverse plot.

If you haven't watched it, it's about a twisted pervert who poses as a police officer over the phone and accuses an employee (Dreama Walker) of stealing money. In most places a stunt like this could last about thirty seconds, but in this anonymous rinky-dink town in Ohio it went on for hours. All it took was a naive restaurant manager (Ann Dowd) and about four equally idiotic others to get a full grown woman to strip and put herself through utter humiliation for some money that was allegedly stolen.

"Compliance" tells a sad tale of the human willingness to obey authority to any extent. And it portrays several individuals who, if a gene pool needs to be erased from existence, theirs certainly does--starting with the store manager, Sandra (Ann Dowd).

A very authoritative sounding man pretended to be a cop investigating a theft at a ChickWich (a cheaper Chick Fil-A type restaurant). He made all of his accusations over the phone while a very compliant manager aided him in his investigation. The "investigation" should've been over the moment he asked Sandra to check Becky's (Dreama Walker) stuff, but it wasn't. When the investigation got to the point of a strip search that Sandra and her shift supervisor, Marti (Ashlie Atkinson), both sat in on, there were no more limits to how far these imbeciles would go to comply with authority.

I've rated this movie highly because it stirred and disturbed me deeply. I have no problem saying that I was triggered by this movie. I hated every aspect of what was going on, yet I was impressed how this movie could rouse me to such heights of anger without being propagandistic or plain trash. I think this movie accomplished what it set out to do, even if it was just to get people angry and call the characters s**t-for-brains. But I do believe the movie had a bigger aim, which was to show how easily people will comply with the most absurd demands of authority, and I, for one, believe it.