Detenção

Could've been done more with this one. Interesting story, slowly built, tensed, well portrayed characters (not just the main two), excellent acting (Brody and Whitaker especially), but in the end unfortunately fails to materialize all that in to something more. Apart from the plain ending and unnecessary undeveloped female character, everything else was done right and it is a gripping thriller indeed.

Probably the most important is that the movie succeeds in the main idea, catching the human nature and its transformation placed in certain conditions. As expected blinding of power and rebelling makes the violence slowly but surely spreads and the movie becomes more disturbing, answering my question why is it going straight to DVD.

This looks like a shot for shot remake of the original film that came out of Germany in 2001. The original had tension and great dialogue but no American star so ''of course like, we had to redo it! ''

I just hate it when movie companies shell out the exact same story that we've already seen. Why? Cause now we got Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker? Come on...

a) Infernal Affairs (2002) = The Departed (2006) b) Ringu (1998) = The Ring(2002) c) Funny Games U.K (1997) = Funny Games U.S (2007) d) Das Experiment (2001) = The Experiment (2010)

Are you starting to get the picture? e) Let the right one in (2008) ( excellent movie that shouldn't have been altered ) = Let me in (2010). That's 2 years. Yes. Two years.

They don't even wait ten years nowadays, they can't wait to shove the same thing down your throat. Don't encourage them. Please.

The Experiment is a 2010 American thriller film directed by Paul Scheuring and starring Adrien Brody, Forest Whitaker,Cam Gigandet and Maggie Grace.The film is also a remake of the 2001 German film Das Experiment, which was directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. The experiment begins when 26 men are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control. $14,000 for two weeks, it is easy-earned money. The study examines aggressive behavior in an artificial prison setting. At first the tenants are divided randomly into prisoners and guards, but soon a spiral of violence begins.

I had some hope for this film because I remember seeing the original Das Experiment more then a year ago and enjoying it. Although brutal the film was brilliant in the way it explored human nature, human instincts, and one's moral compass. It's actually quite surprising that it took such a long time (9 years) for Hollywood to assassinate, pardon me, remake this very interesting story which is actually based on the Stanford prison experiment that took place in 1971 and was highly criticized afterwords. The problem with this remake is that, as in most things Hollywood, it's all about big name actors and big fights and nice camera angles. What's most important, the characterization and the character development which are the things that make this story, were completely thrown aside. One of the consequences of doing so is that the film felt extremely rushed and therefor the payoff wasn't that great. I didn't think there was real tension, and the film lacked that gritty look of the original, instead it looks sharp and polished.

Also, it's one thing to put your own spin into a story but this remake eliminated an entire dimension of the original film. I'm talking about the people behind the cameras, the scientists watching and conducting the experiment. They played a big part in the original and in this remake they are nowhere to be seen and it truly diminished the story. Regarding the acting, I thought Adrien Brody did a pretty good job and Cam Gigandet was delightfully nasty as he usually is. On the other hand, Forest Whitaker was absolutely awful. In almost every film that see him in, he acts like he has a speech impediment and to be honest, it adds nothing to his performance. Overall, The Experiment it's somewhat enjoyable but not nearly as good as the original.

6/10

This film is based loosely on (a) US sponsored psychological experiment in which a prominent psychiatrist ran amok creating a prison in the basement of a noted liberal University. It follows in the steps of a German film Das Experiment (2001), highlighting lack of originality in the US theatre.

Very different from from the real life experiment in which the participants, recruited from students between semesters received rather chincy emoluments, the movie version claims that the test subjects, were offered stupendous incentives for their collaboration.

The film correctly states that volunteers were assigned roles and that as the experiment went on the participants fell into the roles that were given them. Like the German film, the experiment devolves into ever increasing dosages of violence.

In the US version, the feel good ending is even better than the German version. Travis (Adrien Brody) one of the prisoners has such a will to resist the torture and degradation that he busts out. Everyone follows him and they all receive their handsome checks.

In real life, there was no busting out but there was some busting back in. Some who had under intimidation quit the experiment returned and applied to be re-instated. They had formed a camaraderie with the others in the project and wanted to see it through.

In the film version the consequences for the authors of this fiendish experiment was severe. In an investigation that follows, the mad scientist, a rather small and squat gnomish sort behind the experiment, is indicted.

In real life nothing of the kind occurred. Jocularly speaking of the escapade a quarter century later, the real life psychiatrist hosted a US sponsored college course on psychology.

The Experiment has an intriguing premise. Human behavior, group dynamics; what will happen when you put a group of people (all with very different personalities) in a small, stressful environment for a long period of time. As this is a straight to DVD movie it surprisingly has a good cast and doesn't suffer from small budget diseases.

The Experiment has the potential of being a great movie but never reaches it's full potential. To me it felt like certain events were rushed. This could be by the lack of explanation of the motives and the background of certain characters. Ultimately, The Experiment is watchable but forgettable. 6/10