Das Experiment

"The Experiment" is a kind of movie you won't forget easily. It is an amazing spiral of fear, horror and anguish.

A taxi driver decides to be an human guinea-pig for a strange experiment. Twenty men. Two groups. Guards vs. thieves. The prize is money. Every man will have money.

After two days something gets wrong. The taxi driver, who is a reporter too, wants to face the guards. So he provokes the guards: they can't use violence against the prisoners...

After more days the situation becomes more extreme. The guards want to impose their dominion on the prisoners. And now the situation is out of control...

The script isn't really original, but it's been developed in a satisfaction way. The direction is dynamic. If the Americans do movies like Germans, we'll have more interesting products.

This is an overwhelming film. I have not been so affected - physically - since I was run over by "Terminator 2" ten years ago.

If you have any claustrophobic tendencies or if you find it hard to endure situations of powerlessness, this film will be a total nightmare for you. But I urge you to see it anyway...

The acting is superb and the directing is moderate and intelligent. As a result, the potentially predictable story becomes very unpredictable. Its surprise effects are not sudden. You get plenty of time to realize what is about to happen (and how little you or anybody else can do about it...).

At one time, despite being almost completely absorbed by the suspense, I was able to look away from the screen and notice that I was sitting in a movie theater, at a safe distance from the experiment. Thank God!

My grade: 10 out of 10!

I saw this film recently on the Sundance Channel. I could not stop watching. After seeing the prison pictures from Iraq, the film fully explored the reasons for the abuse of prisoners. When I read some of the reviews posted, I noticed how many dismissed the film as contrived and not plausible. I wonder if any of those reviewers would like to modify their dismissal of Das Experiment. Human behavior under stress often declines to the lowest common instinct. It reminded me of an adult Lord of the Flies. Degradation and humiliation seems to exactly follow what happened in Iraq. As a veteran who spent most of time working on Military Mental wards, I witnessed a number of abuses, as force had to be used patients were acting out or lost control, but all those memories seem pale compared to the horrors of the Iraq prison camps. Since life imitates art, this makes the film even more profound.

This was a surprisingly intense film that I'm so glad I watched. The concept was great and this was even before I found out it was based on a true story. But once I heard that it makes me want to look into it a lot more and see what differed from actual life and such. Supposedly the movie was pretty accurate though. It's amazing that good foreign films blow the socks off of most Hollywood garbage any day of the week. They're more realistic and the characters act more like real people would in day to day situations. The love story in this might've been the only thing that I think could've been done better since it became a little weird here and there. Other than that the suspense kept me going and the thought that this could happen to anyone is really scary to ponder. I'm pretty sure I'd like to see this made into an American version only because I'm quite positive they'd butcher it and wouldn't contain anything near the desired effect as has usually been the case in the past. It was kept simple and because of that...it worked! The acting was great all around as it really was a job well done.

Final Import:

Movies: Not a possibility here in the U.S.

DVD Purchase: Worth looking into.

Rental: A wise choice my friend!

I was initially a bit dubious about 'Das Experiment', thinking it looked like it was going to be lame, but within half an hour I was hooked. It isn't the greatest movie ever made, the most technically dazzling, or the most insightful into the human condition, but as a thriller it is first class, and far better than any I've seen come out of Hollywood for years. The movie in inspired by an experiment conducted in America in the early 1970s. 'Das Experiment' isn't a documentary it is after all but a thriller, so the outcome is more sensational than in real life. But I think people may be shocked when they read about the real experiment, as they will see that the basic pattern of what happens in the movie happened in reality. And if people are still skeptical I just suggest they look into their heart and ask themselves honestly what they would do in a similar situation... The cast are all terrific. The only actor I recognized was the star Moritz Bleibtreu, from 'Knocking On Heaven's Door' and 'Run Lola Run', but it really is an ensemble piece and all the actors were well cast and convincing. I highly recommend this movie and just hope that Hollywood doesn't decide to remake it because I'm sure it'll be another 'Insomnia' farce all over again...