The Flock

So there you are, in a car, driving after a guy who is running down a back-street and who has just been doing nasty things to a girl who was tied up by her wrists to a wall. You really, really, want to catch this guy 'cause he's a mean bugger. So you're driving and he's running, and as you get close to him he has the cheek to pick up a rubbish bin - you know, one of the small metal "trash cans' that you see in every back-street.

So when this desperado throws the trash can at your car, what do you do?

I'll tell you what I would do. I'd keep going straight and run the bugger down! But what does Richard Gere do? He's turns sharp left and crashes into a pile of rubbish, gets out of his car and lets the guy get away.

Who the hell wrote that piece of this pathetic script? Too unbelievable. I guess that's why I've never heard of this film.

Please try to choose better scripts, Mr Gere. You're a great actor - you just need to be more picky.

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")

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.

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.

First of all i have seen 8 mm and i am normally quite resistant to some 'heavy' images. But this movie did disturb me.

Most of the viewers complain the movie had a very bad pace, to few twist turns. I both agreed and disagreed here, yes when watching the movie you know who's 'dunnit' way to early but I loved the pace. In my eyes they really made time to make you loath the bad guys and feel repulsed by the idea what they did to those poor girls.

Richard gere was holding back like always, but I often find he's perfect for these roles. Maybe he did not put of a good performance, but he was just made for these roles. Claire Danes didn't impress me in this movie, quite a shame cause i normally really love claire danes ;). You kind of get the idea they used her for eye candy above everything else.

The first 80 minutes of the movie were quite decent in my eyes but the last 20 minutes were a bit of a disappointment. They seemed to be a bit over the top.

All in all a decent movie. 6 out of 10