The Experiment
This is only a test. Tarek (Bliebtrue) is wired up to make sure he can cope with the experiment...
Das Experiment
dir Oliver Hirschbiegel
scr Mario Giordano, Christoph Darnstadt, Don Bohlinger
with Moritz Bliebtrue, Andrea Sawatzki, Justus Von Dohnanyi, Maren Eggert, Christian Berkel, Edgar Selge, Oliver Stokowski, Wotan Wilke Mohring, Nicki Von Tempelhoff, Timo Dierkes, Antoine Monot Jr, Philipp Hochmair
release UK 1.Mar.02; US 20.Sep.02
01/Germany 1h24

3 out of 5 stars
R E V I E W   B Y   R I C H   C L I N E
Inspired by the 1971 Stanford prison experiment, this gruelling German thriller effectively gets under our skin ... even as it goes just a tad bit too far. We're in modern day Germany, where a taxi driver (Bliebtrue) sees an ad asking for volunteers for a two-week mock prison experiment. He can use the money, and he also wants to ignite his journalism career by documenting the experience. So he signs up, and is assigned a role as a prisoner. Conflict arises quickly though, as he clashes with one of the guards (Von Dohnanyi), a particularly brutal, Nazi-like beast. And the experiment's organisers (Sawatzki and Selge) are reluctant to call off the test, because the results are better than they ever imagined. Bad decision.

As things get increasingly out of control, the film gets harder and harder to watch. The levels of brutality that rise in these ordinary men are frightening, especially from the perspective of the prisoners, who are more able thank the guards to maintain their it's-only-a-game objectivity. The acting is effective throughout, and the film is designed beautifully--there's a reality-TV look about it that's deeply unsettling. The problems arise in the plotline. There's a point where the story crosses from pseudo-documentary into pure fiction--characters develop hitherto untapped resources for cruelty or heroism, they begin to do illogical things, and the plot takes over from the character drama. By the end we're left nearly breathless by the horror of it all ... but by that point we have stopped believing that it could ever really happen like this.
adult themes and situations, violence, nudity, language cert 18 10.Jan.02

R E A D E R   R E V I E W S
send your review to Shadows... "This is one of the most emotional movies I've ever seen. The guard (Von Dohnanyi) got me so full of hate, I wanted to hit something to release my anger. It's very well played; Bleibtreu is probably THE German actor, and the plot is one of the most original I've seen over the last year. Thumbs up!" --Dennis, Germany 1.Apr.02
© 2002 by Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall

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