Stoic

After a game of poker takes a turn for the dark side, three inmates find themselves trying to cover up the brutal beating and torture of the fourth inmate in their cell. Stoic, starring Edward Furlong, Shaun Sipos, Sam Levinson, and Steffen Mennekes leads you through the horrible acts, using flashbacks and interview style Q&A with the inmates involved. Stoic is also based on the true story of an inmate from a German juvenile detention center, who was brutalized by fellow cellies.

I had huge doubts going into this movie knowing that it was directed by Uwe Boll, Who's only movies I had been exposed to before this were video game related. The fact that I happen to be a big Edward Furlong fan caused me to give this flick a try. After all, If I was able to sit through the third crow film, I can survive anything. This movie takes every fear a man has about going into the prison system, and rolls it up into one nonstop ride of fear, and uneasiness. The worse case scenario of jail is unfolded in front of you in a very graphic and unforgiving manor. You can really feel the tension rise to higher and higher levels as things continue to spiral further out of control with each passing minute. It's very rare a movie ever makes me truly feel sorry for a victim, because I'm always able to tell myself it's just a movie, it's all in good fun. Stoic does a really impressive job at making you feel for the young man being tortured for no real reason at all.

Now, the things that bothered me about this film, first of all, when in prison, guards check on cells on a pretty frequent time frame, it seemed like a lot of time passed in this movie with no guard in site, beyond when they got food. Of course, that can be overlooked, but there is one scene in the film which I won't spoil just for the sake that some of you may go watch this after reading this, but let's just say huge shenanigans called on the red button incident with no one double checking on the claim made.

With that said I'm shocked, and kind of disturbed to say I enjoyed an Uwe boll movie, and not just because Edward furlong was involved. I was very impressed with the raw, and realistic nature of the film for the most part, and also its ability to make you feel something. I recommend you give it a watch, especially you Netflix users out there, as it is currently viewable via instaqueue.

7/10 - Ritualistic The Liberal Dead http://liberaldead.blogspot.com

Now, I am familiar with the director's questionable reputation and I am aware that Uwe Boll bashing is quite a popular sport on Internet forums (heck, I also agree that most of his movies are utter rubbish), but there are a couple of remarkable things about this man's career that you can't possibly neglect and even have to admire in some strange sort of way. First of all, the man is a hard laborer. Few directors have released an average of four movies per year, especially when they also write and produce their own garbage. Secondly, Boll's repertoire is getting more and more versatile and accessible to wider audiences lately. Initially he specialized in adaptations of gory video games, but recently he made cynical comedies ("Postal") as well as action flicks ("Far Cry") and gritty thrillers ("Seed"). And then last but not least, the man is not ashamed to experiment, innovate and – if necessary – to blunder ingloriously. This newly released movie "Stoic", for example, all things considered it turned out a failure, but nevertheless a mild and intriguing one with still a whole lot of merits and praiseworthy factors. I feel I should start with a warning to the squeamish, as "Stoic" is a deeply unpleasant movie with an unceasingly guttural atmosphere and a large amount of inhumanly barbarous shock sequences. At the Fantastic Film Festival in my native country, where Uwe Boll and lead actor Edward Furlong came to introduce the film themselves, several people walked out of the theater because they couldn't cope with the harshness of certain bits of footage. I realize this works as a recommendation more than as a warning, but be advised this is not a movie for everyone. You'll notice during the opening sequences, or here on the film's website page as well, that nobody is credited for writing "Stoic". That is simply because there isn't a screenplay. Uwe Boll based the concept on true events as they occurred in a German prison in 2006 and only gave the most principal of instructions as his cast of four improvised all their lines and dialogs at the spot. This is obviously a risky undertaking, but admittedly it suits the tone of the film which is primitive and raw. Four petty criminals share a minuscule cell and spend most of their days playing poker and exchanging stories on how bad-ass they are. One day, a game of poker runs out of hand and the mentally weakest of the four – Mitch – loses a bet which ordered him to eat a complete tube of toothpaste. He stubbornly refuses and the other three team up against him. What starts out as a silly macho contest quickly escalates into a sick-spirited and vile series of humiliation, torture, vicious rape, mutilation and eventually inflicted suicide. "Stoic" is imaginatively structured, with interview scenes of the three culprits mixed with the footage of what actually happened inside those four prison walls. Initially the three convicts claim it was an ordinary case of suicide, but the truth gradually comes to the surface as they only want to protect themselves and begin to blame the other ones of having the lead. The main malfunction of this movie is that it actually has no reason of existence. It's an exploitative and unimaginably gratuitous piece of torture-porn without added psychological or socialist value whatsoever. Boll pretends to give an insight in human behavior, but basically only stills his own personal hunger for sleaze and violence. We only know the formula is based on true events, but this film draws its own conclusions that are unquestionably far more sensational and grotesque than what really happened. There clearly went very little research into this production prior to shooting, so it would be immensely hypocritical to label "Stoic" as a dramatic portrait of our modern day prison system. Nevertheless I don't want to criticize Mr. Boll's accomplishment any further, as he definitely improved a great deal when it comes to directorial skills and competence. You can sense that he was in control of his filming set and had the luck of working with four adequate young actors, including Edward Furlong and Sam Levinson. "Stoic" is a mean and uncomfortable film that I don't exactly intend to watch again any time soon, but it's undeniably a memorable and out-of-the-ordinary experience.

The events in this movie happened a few years ago in a German youth-prison, exactly like director/writer Uwe Boll tells. I researched and found accurate reports from that time on some German online newspapers. The only fiction in the movie may be the interviews with the offenders, but their's and the victim's character's have many similarities with the real ones.

People may detest this unusual movie, because it's really merciless with the audience, and the audience here may not be the same like in some other Boll movies. But in this case brutality is not shown to entertain, entertaining graphic violence has mostly a fictional aspect, which is not present here, it is shown to make the audience uncomfortable, to disturb.

To watch this movie means to participate with, to be in a small room together with three young men who are torturing and killing another one, who is too weak to help himself. And we can't help him.

Boll did his homework for this movie. The story follows exactly the real events, the young actors are very believable - for me Furlong does the most convincing part - the dissecting camera is always where it should (not) be, and the cut is well-made to give the audience some air to breathe; at least we get some insights about what drives such twisted minds.

Stoic is not a big movie, it's not for a big audience at all. It's not even an artwork. But it's a good, honest documentary horror movie about what people are able to do if civilization is only a few steps away.

I speak only in terms of atmosphere, so realistic and unbearable, disgusting but so awfully true atmosphere behind bars. Because the plot itself is certainly closer to BULLY than SCUM, which was more focused on another scheme. Well, this movie is the best of Uwe Boll, a film maker too long underrated, despised, who shows here his real talent, his skills. He is a very gifted film maker, he proves it here in the best way. But, as you can guess, it is not destined to wide audiences. It is such a shame that all Uwe Boll's films did not look like this one, not in terms of story but directing. It belongs, for me, to the best behind bars films ever made, the most underrated too.

Tl;dr: Ignore the spammed rating, we all know Uwe Boll is a reliably terrible director, but he pulled off this one good film in his life. Good acting, good premise, believable characters who's motives are understandable given the context. It's pretty bleak, but if that's what you're into, it's a great way to spend an hour and half.

If I have any complaints about the movie, it's in the editing and (lack of) script. First of all, the movie is frequently intercut with interviews/interrogations of the surviving inmates. However, there is nobody in the movie actually questioning them. Often they'll answer a question and the audience doesn't have any context. It's my understanding that much of this film was improvised, which really helped the conversational madness of the scenes in the cell. But occasionally, you could tell an actor was stuck trying to think of something to say, which leaves a few awkward pauses and strange phrasing.

Other than that, for a movie that mostly takes place in a single room, it's quite entertaining. The pacing is great; you'll never be bored. There's some great acting, especially from Sam Levinson who you truly believe is traumatized. In his interview segments, he gives a very emotional performance. He acted with his hands a bit too much, but other than that, I'm shocked he hasn't done more serious mainstream dramatic roles.

The worst performance comes from John Connor from Terminator 2 (once I realized who he was, that's all I could think of him as). He's not terrible, but he plays the most remorseless character, so it seems like he's trying too hard to be a generic sociopath. The German dude was pretty good too.

Obviously the movie is dark and depressing, but if that's the kind of thing you're into, I highly recommend it.