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| Rated: 0.00/5 | Votes: 1 | Views: 20 |Submitted: 10/06/10 |
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THE EXPERIMENT Review
By Brian Smith Starring Adrien Brody, Forrest Whitaker, Maggie Grace Directed by Paul Scheuring I’ll start off by mentioning that THE EXPERIMENT is not exactly a horror film in my opinion- calling it a psychological thriller would more accurately describe this gritty prison film starring Adrien Brody, Forrest Whitaker and Maggie Grace. The film is a remake of the German DAS EXPERIMENT (2001) and based on the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. In THE EXPERIMENT, we meet Travis (Brody), a likeable 30-something hipster who loses his job early in the film. In a comical scene in the shortly following this, Travis is at a protest rally because “it’s a good place to pick up girls”. Soon, we meet his love interest in the film, Bay, who is your average hippie/hipster girl (Grace). Travis, we learn, wants to travel although he just lost his job and has no savings. Travis, looking for money applies for an experimental study guaranteeing $1000/day for 14 days. Bay heads to India with the promise that Travis will leave in 2 weeks after the study is done. Sounds easy enough, right? The head of THE EXPERIMENT is Dr. Archaleta, played by the ever so creepy Fisher Stevens. Upon his arrival, Travis meets the other participants including a quiet man named Barris (Whitaker). Travis learns that the experiment he’s going to participate in is a prison study where the group of men are split up into “guards” and “prisoners” and while any of them can leave at any time, they are given basic rules that must be followed or no one will get paid. The “prisoners” must do as they are told, eat, exercise, etc. and the “guards” must enforce these rules without using violence. Revealed only to the guards, Dr. Archaleta explains that each offense made by the prisoners has an equal consequence. He leaves the action of the discipline to the guards, but if they don’t act accordingly a red siren will go off and THE EXPERIMENT will be over. Meaning: if they use excessive force, there’s no money for anyone. As the film rolls on, the guards attempt to enforce the rules. However, the prisoners, believing that they can’t be physically harmed pay little attention and the violence and bad treatment by the guards escalates as they are repeatedly reinforced by not having the alarm go off. As animosity builds between the guards, led by Whitaker and the prisoners, led by Brody, we see that THE EXPERIMENT is spiraling out of control to the point where one guard, played by Cam Gigandet attempts to, and later succeeds, in raping a gay prisoner! This is five days in to the study! Really! This film has its moments, but the actions of the characters aren’t explained as thoroughly as I would have hoped. In the end, the worst side of everyone involved is out in the open with no real resolution, making the storytelling of THE EXPERIMENT falls just a little short. Rating: 3 out of 5 stars |
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