Compliance

As hard as it will be to believe, this film is very closely based on a real event. A man saying he is a police officer calls a fast food restaurant and gets one of the cashiers brought into the back room by her manager. She is accused of theft and the officer needs the manager to hold her in the room until he can get there. He also needs her to check her purse. And take her phone. And search her pockets. The manager complies and one step at a time things get terribly worse for everyone.

This film had potential. The title suggests that we are looking at the idea of compliance with authority figures and, in order to do that, we will use a real situation to investigation why this occurs. Sadly the film doesn't do any of this and instead simply plays out the real incident without much intelligent to say about it other than telling us it happened. There isn't even discussion after the fact because the ending is spent tying up the mystery (such as it is) in a way that doesn't satisfy and seems tacked on. This lack of insight or commentary is a problem but we are still left with a recreation of sorts – and this is at least delivered with a bit of a sense of tension at first. I say at first not because it flops in the second half but because for it this was replaced by something else – a feeling of the film putting me in the same place as the prank caller, and not in a meaningful way.

The film pushes the sexual material on us in a way it didn't need to. The lead girl is not plain, but blonde with a great figure and the camera doesn't shame away from letting us see it. Nor does it let her break down as the detective reviewing the video at the end of the film tells us she did (crying and begging), instead it keeps her together so that the viewer doesn't feel pushed away by her raw and shredded emotions. It is a very odd series of decisions and I would like to think they were not deliberate but it is difficult when they line up so effectively. The cast mostly do not explore their situations or reasons and, although they follow events, none of them really gave me much beyond what was on the page.

The film does deliver the real events pretty straight but I wondered why it didn't seem to add much to them. There is nothing really in the way of insight or commentary here – the plot plays out and then ends. While doing it though, the film also seems to enjoy the nudity and the sexuality of the lead actress and prevents her from breaking down while also giving her breasts and body plenty of direct line of sight. The film already felt empty and like a missed opportunity – but this just added tawdry to the list.

Compliance (2012)

*** (out of 4)

Based on a true story about a fast food manager (Ann Dowd) who receives a phone call from a police officer saying that one of the employees (Dreama Walker) has stolen some money from a customer. The officer then tells the manager to take the girl into her office, strip search her and then hold her there until the police can come get her. COMPLIANCE is a film that has made many people angry and the reports of walk-outs were rather shocking to see because you have to wonder why people would buy a ticket for a film like this and then get upset. I had the misfortune of living in Mount Washington, KY for a few years and this is where the original incident took place. It was at a McDonald's that I've eaten at and I even knew of the people involved in the case. Considering the "type" of town this place was it never really shocked me that something like this could happen but apparently it has happened all over the country. Yes, the subject matter is ugly and yes it's incredible that anyone could be so stupid to allow this to happen but it's all based on fact that people can check out. This film is a pretty ugly but I say that in a good way because with a subject like this there's really no way to paint it as something good so I admire the writer-director for just going strongly at the subject. Both Dowd and Walker turn in excellent performances as does the rest of the supporting cast. Again, the subject matter is just so crazy that it has to be true or else you'd start screaming at your television over the characters doing such stupid things. I still have a lot of questions over the actual case and especially consider the character of some involved. Having followed the case there were some major things that I felt were left out but this has little to do with this film. As a film I think it's very effective and ugly just as it should be. One could debate for years about what actually happened and what one would do if they were ever in a similar circumstance.

After watching this movie i just couldn't believe it was based on a true story. It boggled my mind that a group of people could be this stupid. In BIG disbelief i searched the net to see if this was really true or just loosely based on a true story. I found proof that it was totally true. Every aspect of the story was true. ABC even did a story about these events with interviews with the manager and the young girl. Also showing actual footage of the events.

The movie is not bad. The characters to a good job. But you will spend more time with your mouth open in disbelief of whats happening then actually enjoying the movie. It really is disturbing.

I lasted less than halfway through this thing. HOW can people be such idiots? For DECADES, we have had television police procedurals. Common sense should have prevented ANY of this from happening,

My walk-away? "GOD, these people vote!"

This movie is simply unbearable to watch. Yes, it is well made and has great acting. But whats infuriating is that it highlights how truly stupid and uneducated most Americans are. Yes, I understand given the notion of authority, people will listen to what they are told, but these people act like they have never heard of due process of law, innocent until proved guilty, asking for an attorney to be present or even asking for a policeman's badge number when he demands strange things. Only at a fast food restaurant, staffed by the most uneducated idiots could something like this occur. Or rather, I would like to think so. It seems as if the caller banks of what the people may have seen in TV shows to get them to follow his orders, but likewise, wouldn't TV at least remind people that officers don't strip search and spank people over like 40 missing dollars? The moral of the story is to stay in school and know your rights. Or you might wind up like these morons someday.