Review of Compliance (2012) by Dillinger P — 02 Feb 2015

Let me just begin this review by expressing my anger in a vulgar phrase, "Fuck this film!". I have seen many bad films in my time, some range from tragic misfires to outright pieces of unprofessional garbage.

How this, outright unwatchable film, made it past the green lit stage I will never know. The film begins with the predictable tag line of "Inspired by true events", which has now made its way onto just about every horror/torture porn film since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Unlike that nerve shredding masterpiece however, what follows here is a disaster. Sandra, the biggest idiot on the planet, is the manager of a fast food joint on a friday night, not only has one of her employees spoiled all 15,000 dollars worth of food (Is that even an accurate figure for most fast food joints to contain in a fridge, that must be the biggest fridge on the planet) but one her busiest night she receives a phone call from a man, claming to be a police officer and claiming that the 19 year out employee Becky, has commited an act of theft.

This leads to Sandra locking Becky in the back room and allowing the caller to humiliate Becky in all sorts of ways. The concept alone is preposterous, the idea that someone could actually pass off as the police on the phone, for a huge chunk of time and manage to get any, never mind a number of people to partake in his evil scheme, especially another female, is just downright lunacy.

Any person, would hang up the phone immediately and call the police, I dont care how stupid you are. Not only is the idea completely stupid but the execution of the writing is horrendous too, dialogue is written by what seems like a 12 year old.

The amount of times the actors have to repeat not only the same lines, but the same scenarios is just preposterous. It's like the writer had a concept that would last 10 minutes and decided to stretch it out to the bare minimum of 1 hour and 29 minutes.

I give him credit, he manages to create some characters, none of which are likeable. Becky barely warrants any care for her past the point that she is a female put in a horrific position. You cant sympathise with Sandra cause shes so stupid to go along with this plot, the other employees are stereotypical characters, used only to drag things out.

The prank caller himself, although ominous, isnt very good at his hobby. If the film had actually made us feel for the characters and made the call more believable, this film could have been, slightly better.

The pacing is fucking diabolical, feeling like a week and a half rather than the hour and a half. Honestly I have never clocked checked more often in a film. This film beats enter the void for clock checks, and that film is twice as long.

Aggrivating however is the fact that the cinematography is pretty outstanding, there is some gorgeous lighting, tonnes of macro shots, tracking shots galour. The music and sound department do a fantastic job as well, its just a shame that all this outstanding work is ruined on such horrendous content.

The films saving grace, apart from the afformentioned, is the final 10 minutes, where the film actually begins to feel, you know, like a gripping film. Once the characters realise the extent of whats just happened, everything starts to feel more traumatic and real.

Could we not have started the film from this point? Considering your going with this guy being a repeat offender, having the film be more involved in the investigative side of it, how the victims managed to live with the trauma, watching as businesses fall and crumble to the ground, taking the higher ups with them, but no, it wraps that up in 10 minutes or less, leaving the meat of the content being a girl stuck in a room naked for over an hour continually being asked to take an apron off.

If you could mute the dialogue and just have the visual and audio this would be worth your time checking out. Just leave this alone.