Review of Compliance (2012) by Sam S — 09 Jan 2013

A disturbing thriller based on supposedly true events about a mean spirited prank pulled on the employees of a fast food restaurant. A caller (Pat Healy) claiming to be a police officer tells manager Sandra (Ann Dowd) that one of her employees, Becky (Dreama Walker) has committed a theft and needs to be searched and detained.

The caller asks Sandra and her staff to do increasingly humiliating things to Becky all under the guise that it is part of a criminal investigation and none of them seem to have the courage to question the increasingly depraved acts until it's too late.

Compliance is a tough movie to sit through and it would be hard to believe that people could be stupid enough to go along with such a horrible prank for as long as they did except for the fact that it is all taken from a case in 2004 at a Mc Donald's in Fort Washington, Kentucky.

Craig Zobel directs the story fairly straight forward and he gets good performances out of his cast and the result is a disturbing movie that is tough to sit through. Even more so because it actually happened.

Not a great film, the aftermath seems rushed after the film took it's time portraying the events but, it is effective and fairly well made.