The Experiment (2010)

The power hungry, the pacifist and the conformers

This is a film with a message about losing sight of what it means to be a civilized human being in modern times and if violence should equate into our decisions and motivations when interacting with each other. It goes beyond the usual white lab coat behavioral experiment when an elaborate scenario is created that takes a group of participants, who want to make a chunk of change, by simulating the conditions in a state penitentiary for those who've never been in to demonstrate if power would be abused.

After Travis (Adrien Brody) gets laid off from a nursing home, he protests a war and finds love. She wants to go to India, he doesn't have cash, so he spots an ad in the paper offering $1000 a day for an experiment. How hard could it be? Soon enough the participants fill out paperwork (easy), get individually interviewed (sounds fun), put through visual tests (not so great) and then sit through an orientation with a speedy talker (show me the money!). He makes it all sound so "safe" and "secure," expect a clue comes when he slips in that some subjects will be deprived of their civil rights. Get 'em to say yes a bunch of times and anybody making a pitch won't have any trouble dodging that no. Off they go.

They're brought to an isolated location and are to be locked in for two weeks by themselves with only cameras to watch. The test subjects are divided into two groups of guards and prisoners and given specific rules that they must follow or else nonviolent disciplinary action is to be given from the guards. If the guards don't follow accordingly a red light will be turned on in 30 minutes and the experiment will be terminated resulting in no one getting paid. Some focus on the money and block it out. Others can't handle the stress of dropping what pride, beliefs and creature comforts they had beforehand. And then there are those that take it a little too seriously either because this is their chance in life to be taken so or they actually enjoy taking advantage of others when granted the go-ahead from a higher authority. Soon enough the weaker start to fall in line and the stronger step out in an attempt to stand by their points. Two personalities collide on opposite sides with Travis (Adrien Brody) representing the prisoner's rights and Michael (Forest Whitaker) helming the guards with no-nonsense, totalitarian order.

Part of this was based on the real life Stanford Prison Experiment conducted in 1971. However, there are some differences, as this attempts to show how it would have ended up if the head scientist wasn't directly involved in the decision making processes during the experiment, as well as it doesn't have him set a tone to guide a certain way. Results also happen within only a few days out from the start with here poor impulse control such as alcohol abuse, as well as gross humiliations, torture, attempted rape and a few of the guys might have been dictators in a past life with their penchant for well timed out speeches. Yeah, it's all going to seem exaggerated, not necessarily for what could be done, but how the specific scenes were set up as it didn't completely put the audience in their shoes and its believability starts to dwindle after more and more scenarios are stacked on.

It's strange to set this in modern times, as there are stricter ethical guidelines and background checks that would test for mental instability and diseases due to the original experiment. It made it seem like these trained professionals went out of their way to deceive and purposely show inaction to see results without actually explaining or showing why--by being kept completely in the dark, it almost makes them diabolical. Not to mention if there weren't several dominating personalities in guard positions (which seemed to be purposely put there)--or even prisoners who took it seriously at first, however you look at it--it's questionable whether this would have gone the same.

They didn't try and make this an exceptional case out of a bunch, but the only one tested apparently, which isn't enough to see if it was just a fluke. It seems over-elaborate to jeopardize their professional careers as there are now established rules in place; as well as for the sum of money they were giving out and the design of the facility to put all their eggs in one basket. It also only shows how a set of people temporarily put in authority positions will react in the heat of the moment resulting in their perspective being off to find a reasonable middle ground--rather than in a real and established prison system that would have a guideline in place from an extended period of trial and error.

The ending winded down a little too easily as they were well behaved going in, animalistic inside, then instantaneously regretful, so the filmmakers could quickly put the blame elsewhere for what the participants did. As a cinematic experience that goes for entertainment value alone, "The Experiment" has some particular areas where the actors shine, has a steady pacing that wasn't in one area for too long, and it still left room to think about some "what if?" questions even if it seemed to have somewhat of an agenda that leans towards a certain side at points. Though it's a movie where more of it seems fine at first as everything is happening so fast, but when the brain settles down afterwards too many questionable things occurred and it might make one's head spin more than inspire productive debate.

Rating: 3/10

Director: Paul Scheuring (producer/writer of "Prison Break")
Stars: Adrien Brody, Forest Whitaker, Cam Gigandet
Link: IMDB

Repo Men (2010)

Overdue organs

We currently live in a consumerist world where almost everything is on a payment plan--car, house, flat screen TV--that comes with exorbitant interest rates and endless monthly bills in the mail. This film gives that sentiment a gut-wrenching yet darkly humorous and sometimes flashy twist as it shows a company in the slightly distant future that has a right to legally take back their manufactured organs from living, breathing people who can no longer make payments. A person is tracked down by commissioned bounty hunters called "Repo Men" who knock someone unconscious and then literally extract the merchandise right then and there in a hasty, gruesome fashion. No time for ambulances and hospitals, because guess what? You ain't gonna to make it.

A suburban man named Remy (Jude Law) works in this corporate, uncaring business where humans are moved along and disposed of like cattle. Where there's money, there's always someone to do the dirty work to their own kind and over the years he's seen all the reactions and pleads that you can name just before they bleed to death. Except it pays the bills and supports his wife and kid, giving him more power to his do-what-I-have-to, do-what-I-can philosophy because at this point he's got all the reason and nothing can touch him. Though his wife wants him to move over to sales with less pay but more stable hours despite racking up the bounties by the boatload. His partner Jake (Forest Whitaker) is the true sadist of the two and the only person that he respects is his childhood buddy Remy, despite having two wildly different looks and accents. He's always been there with him and sees him stepping away from what they built up together as a slight in their close knit friendship.

This switches between several tones as it progresses, going from a movie with some wit about the unstoppable power hungry, then turning the tables and gaining some perspective from an accident and Remy getting a manufactured organ of his own, to some romance with a former singer that played at a bar he frequented, and then a fugitive on the run flick as he by chance catches back up with her and has to erase both their names from the system. It manages to grow and expand, all the while maintaining a purposeful exaggeration and a certain pessimistic playfulness and sarcasm. This is a futuristic world where there are new gadgets and gizmos as well as space is small and advertisements are everywhere in the inner cities like "Blade Runner." Though Remy has to go through some gritty locales that are unkept like a World War III backdrop to avoid scanners picking up his and her organs being tagged as behind in payments.

Forest Whitaker plays a frightening role by managing to keep you guessing if he's completely bonkers or has some reasoning somewhere under that bulky front. He holds their motto "a job's a job" to heart and the only thing that cools his heals is money: to making it or getting in the way of it. Jude Law keeps the various tones together, going from tough and untouchable to contemplative and caring. Alice Braga as Beth keeps it simultaneously strong and sexy as she kicks a drug habit, gets a few nasty injuries and manages to get intimate despite the often dirty settings. Some of the fight scenes are somewhat surprising for a Hollywood film, as there are still frequent edits in between takes, though the camera usually captures the actor doing their own stunts in plain view instead of showing a fist flying this way or a blank back of the head shot that. Not only that, when a guy gets shot or stabbed, he takes one for the bloody team in full view.

"Repo Men" is a modern day satire at its cruelest down to its twisted ending with a twist. There are some plot holes glazed over for poetic license though the movie moves at a steady enough pacing and gets its main areas right. Like "The Road" it has a message about what we can become and are capable of as humans when we travel down a dark pathway, though delivered in a lighter, jeering manner. This is a future where there's no human rights activists, just a cold and calculated empire that gets people hooked and then drains them. With diminishing health, drug dependency and addictions (here Q habit) our bodies are pushed to the limits of what they can endure, and it was only inevitable that a company would step in to capitalize and make a commodity out of it.

This is an entertaining social commentary that manages to treat serious subjects like popcorn cinema with some black humor and homage to other films. It gives mention to our constant demand for possessions, health care, our obsession with bigger and better, and other contemporary disorders such as surgical and cosmetic addiction. In one way it is reminiscent of "Gattaca" in which we want to upgrade ourselves to perfection, not realizing those certain kinks make us unique even if they aren't what the supermarket magazines tell us who we should be. What made this film work was it was capable of balancing an excessive side and then include a certain bit of measurement to make it seem slightly possible enough to raise some questions for productive debate.

Rating: 8/10

Director: Miguel Sapochnik
Stars: Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, Liev Shreiber, Alice Braga
Link: IMDB


Facts from the Black and Red:

- A human can live without their tonsils, appendix, spleen and gallbladder.

- A chicken in 1945 had most of its head cut off and lived for 18 months due to a fluke resulting in the axe missing the carotid artery, a blood clot forming and the brain stem still being intact, which controls vital organ functions such as respiration, blood pressure and heart rate. Incidentally, "Mike the Headless Chicken" died two years later from a minor choking accident.