The Flock - Dunkle Triebe

I have just seen this movie. It just opened today (November 9th 2007) in Spain. Let me say that I understand the bad word of mouth the movie is having, it deals with a difficult subject (sexual abusers) and its tone is as dark as say "9 MM", if not darker.

But all things considered it's a pretty good film. The investigation angle makes for a very tense thriller, but where the film really shines is in the depiction of Richard Gere's characters, as well as the villain's, which I won't reveal.

Gere is really all stops go here, it's easily his most intense role since "Internal Affairs". Even if you are not Gere fans, you're gonna love him in this.

On the minus side, I didn't like the way the film is edited. It's full of flashes, freeze frames and all those "arty" stuff they cram into your TV series and direct-to-DVD movies. I understand they wanted to give the movie a hard edge, but it's often too distracting. The film is already dark and gritty enough as it is, and this bells and whistles don't add a damn thing.

And then there's Claire Danes. look, she's an OK actress, but she was like a fish out of water here. They give her character some interesting background, but she's constantly out off key. She looks like a raving lunatic when she tries to act quirky or vulnerable, and not very convincing when the script calls for her character to toughen up a little.

So, it's an interesting movie if you can go beyond the surface of its visual trickery, but not as good as it could be. I would say it earns a 6'5 - 7 in my scale.

I finally caught "The Flock" on HBO. A taping at 4:20 am while I was asleep, true, but it's better watched at that hour, methinks. It was apparently only released to theaters in Japan and Turkey, from all reports, but North Americans really didn't miss much.

It's professionally produced, pairs Claire Danes memorably with Richard Gere, and makes their interplay (standard retiring-burnout-and-protégé) entirely believable in most ways.

The gore and corpses aren't beyond those in many modern horror movies, though the camera often lingers more than it should. The fetishes (and worse) of Gere's monitored ex-cons shouldn't shock anyone who's ever been in a triple-X shop.

Danes's acting is superb, especially in pursuing an abductor's trail (standard police-procedural, though by non-cops) with Gere's brooding and effective Errol. What blew a hole in this, though, is that she was miscast in the first place.

Even though one of Gere's well-worn "flock" is female, nearly all are intimidating men, and the role her character Allison is training to take up calls for more heft. Both physically and professionally.

I didn't believe for one minute that Allison chose such a grueling job out of anything more than economic need, certainly not from any more personal calling. No hints are made as to her motivation, nor is anything mentioned of her personal life, beyond nosy behavior and a clumsy allusion by compulsive background-checker Errol.

It's a miscasting on a par with what was done with Danes in "The Mod Squad," but unlike that idiocy of a plot-mangled remake, this gives Danes a quite strong setup — and much gore and many sad fetishes — to play against. If you accept that someone of her perception and refinement would ever take that job in the first place, that is.

Turn to it on cable, but I wouldn't take the effort to even go to the video store or put it in a Netflix queue. It's worth one viewing.

(Most of this review originally appeared on the IMDb board for Claire Danes, followed by considerable discussion.)

Gere and Danes star as 2 workers for the department of public safety who keep track of released sex offenders. Gere, who plays Babbage, refers to them as his flock. Gere is an over obsessed vigilante whom is on his way out. He is training, new comer Allison, to take over his job. Gere sees his flock as very sick, disturbed puppies. He asks them questions that are not on the list, and tries to act like the police and solve crimes. He keeps getting warned for this behavior, hence the reason he is being replaced. During his final few days on the job, a young girl goes missing, and Babbage is sure it is one of his flock whom has gone astray. Him and Allison narrow a list down and discover some of the offenders have gone AWOL. So, he decides that he needs to track the missing girl down rather than help the police. That part is a little far fetched.

There is some sick, twisted stuff shown in this film. Like when Babbage and Allison go to this building where a bunch of sick people do disturbing things to each other. Also, there are the people who kidnapped the girl. At the end of the film, we see what sick freaks they are. However, I wouldn't call this movie excessive because not really much is shown on film.

FINAL VERDICT: If you like thrillers and films about serial killers and cops chasing killers, then you will like this.

The paranoid registrant administrator of the Department of Public Safety Erroll Babbage (Richard Gere) is forced to an early retirement due to his abusive behavior against the sex offenders that he should monitor, and shall spend his last eighteen days training his replacement Allison Lowry (Claire Danes). When the seventeen years old Harriet Wells (Kristina Sisco) is considered missing in his area of work, Errol is convinced that her disappearance is related to one of his parole sex offenders. However, his superiors do not believe on his investigations and he convinces Allison to follow him in the sick underworld of pornography and perversions trying to find the missing girl.

"The Flock" is a movie with unpleasant and bigoted story and characters with a good and dark cinematography but terrible edition and camera work. The ambiguous character of Richard Gere has a despicable behavior in spite of solving the case, and it is impossible to feel any empathy for him. In the beginning, there are statistics about the theme "sex offenders", and I do not know whether they are realistic or generated by a North American obsession that considers a sexual offense or harassment certain attitudes accepted by other societies. This film seems to be intended to spread a sort of concern and prejudice against those that have been condemned but paid their debt with the society, since they have been released on probation by the justice. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Justiça a Qualquer Preço" ("Justice at any Price")

The Flock was nothing too original, but a movie doesn't have to be original in order for it to be good. For its few, if any, forgivable flaws as a by-the-books detective/Seven thriller, the Flock as a whole is still a taut, brooding, gritty, intense and fun little popcorn flick. Like I said, the material isn't exactly fresh but it is still far from stale and Richard Gere, who act as though he were a man possessed, elevates the script and the film that much higher in terms of overall quality. This is not bargain basement entertainment, nor did it deserve to go straight-to-video in the US, especially given the talent involved both in front of and behind the camera. The list includes: Richard Gere (in his prime), Claire Danes, Andrew Lau (director of Infernal Affairs), and of course, the Weinstein Company (who need no introduction seeing as they are Hollywood.)Despite the lack of hype, the Flock deserves recognition for its solidity, or at least a watch. trust me, its a hell of a lot more thoughtful and entertaining than 99% of the garbage that continues to get released on a daily basis.