Compliance (2012)
Country: US
Technical: col/2.35:1 90m
Director: Craig Zobel
Cast: Ann Dowd, Dreama Walker, Pat Healy
Synopsis:
A fast food restaurant is targeted by a prank caller, who impersonates a police officer and proceeds to hold hostage an attractive young salesgirl, coercing her and her fellow employees into committing irrational and immoral acts.
Review:
Based on 70 or more actual cases across the United States, this potent docu-drama reveals the lengths to which people will go when responding to a voice of authority on the end of a telephone. Partly excusing the manageress's gullibility through the considerable pressures under which she was working on the evening in question, the film nevertheless shows that ordinary folk behave like machines endowed with emotions, and succumb almost meekly to outside pressure if there is the remotest threat to themselves, or, as in the most unsettling episode, if they privately might quite like to anyway. An outraged sense of propriety is the individual's sole protection. All this is shot in mobile reportage-style close-ups and medium close-ups, but is edited with big-budget intensity to give a multiple perspective on the feelings and ordeals of the participants. An outstanding piece of film-making.
Country: US
Technical: col/2.35:1 90m
Director: Craig Zobel
Cast: Ann Dowd, Dreama Walker, Pat Healy
Synopsis:
A fast food restaurant is targeted by a prank caller, who impersonates a police officer and proceeds to hold hostage an attractive young salesgirl, coercing her and her fellow employees into committing irrational and immoral acts.
Review:
Based on 70 or more actual cases across the United States, this potent docu-drama reveals the lengths to which people will go when responding to a voice of authority on the end of a telephone. Partly excusing the manageress's gullibility through the considerable pressures under which she was working on the evening in question, the film nevertheless shows that ordinary folk behave like machines endowed with emotions, and succumb almost meekly to outside pressure if there is the remotest threat to themselves, or, as in the most unsettling episode, if they privately might quite like to anyway. An outraged sense of propriety is the individual's sole protection. All this is shot in mobile reportage-style close-ups and medium close-ups, but is edited with big-budget intensity to give a multiple perspective on the feelings and ordeals of the participants. An outstanding piece of film-making.
Country: US
Technical: col/2.35:1 90m
Director: Craig Zobel
Cast: Ann Dowd, Dreama Walker, Pat Healy
Synopsis:
A fast food restaurant is targeted by a prank caller, who impersonates a police officer and proceeds to hold hostage an attractive young salesgirl, coercing her and her fellow employees into committing irrational and immoral acts.
Review:
Based on 70 or more actual cases across the United States, this potent docu-drama reveals the lengths to which people will go when responding to a voice of authority on the end of a telephone. Partly excusing the manageress's gullibility through the considerable pressures under which she was working on the evening in question, the film nevertheless shows that ordinary folk behave like machines endowed with emotions, and succumb almost meekly to outside pressure if there is the remotest threat to themselves, or, as in the most unsettling episode, if they privately might quite like to anyway. An outraged sense of propriety is the individual's sole protection. All this is shot in mobile reportage-style close-ups and medium close-ups, but is edited with big-budget intensity to give a multiple perspective on the feelings and ordeals of the participants. An outstanding piece of film-making.