The Experiment: Film Review

The Experiment (2010) Film Review, 3/10 I haven't seen Das Experiment, the original German film, but I'd read up on the Stanford Prison Experiment and was very intrigued as to how that premise could be transfered to the screen. This film, unfortunately, is surprisingly badly executed. The first few minutes aren't all that bad, and Scheuring presents an interesting basis: exploring the darker side of human nature and just how high up the evolutionary chain we are. The idea is to pit some people into a barely controlled prison simulation where one group takes the role of guards and the other one plays the prisoners. In the actual experiment, the first day was more or less uneventful and then the situation spiraled out of control. The guards, either taking on their roles stereotypically or for some other reason, started to abuse their power, and the experiment had to be cancelled before the planned end date. However, what this film does is turn what was potentially a great storyline into a clash between the overwhelmed prisoners and the almost cartoonishly cruel guards. The whole purpose of the film is lost when the "guards" are written out as intrinsically violent and mostly flat-out insane. The characters are unrealistic and, perhaps in an attempt to simplify the plot, mind- numbingly clichéd. In fact, the amount of sane people involved in this "experiment" is five at most... out of twenty-six. The film goes downhill from the moment the filmmakers decide to try to amp up the suspense, and the ending is almost incredibly stupid. The film doesn't even achieve the "so-bad-it's-entertaining" status because, despite the fact that it tries to put forth a serious issue, it is so overly simplified that it ends up insulting the viewer's intelligence. The only reason this has a three instead of a one is because the camerawork is quite good at times and both Brody and Whitaker do the best they can with their crappy characters in this badly written plot. unfortunately, it's not nearly enough to save it.