COMPLIANCE Review

It confuses the hell out of me when someone says that something is a bad movie when they are able to put their full attention to the film and never be bored. Why is it bad? Because you don't like the characters, their intentions, or the people that they are? Or do you just not like the film because it's stupid? Or do you just not like the film because it isn't the way that you want it to be?

COMPLIANCE can easily fall under any of these three categories. Where I can easily say that this 90 minute movie doesn't really slack at all, it is quite hard to watch. At the end of the movie, my girlfriend turned to me and said that it was the worst movie that she has ever seen. I asked her why, due to how her eyes never left the screen the whole movie.

Look, you are not always going to like the characters and decisions they make. It's just life. When it is the filmmaker's intention for you to not like a character, like a movie villain or just an asshole who runs your favorite character off the road, you're not supposed to like them, so get over it. COMPLIANCE is full of unlikable characters, and even though it is a very hard movie to watch, it's an important movie and a reminder of just how stupid the world is.

COMPLIANCE tells the story of a fast-food joint that happens to get an unexpected phone call. The manager, Sandra (Ann Dowd), is already in a bad mood before this phone call because the employees aren't listening to her and someone left the fridge open the night before, destroying over $1000 dollars in food and products. But somebody is on the phone for Sandra - a police officer, as a matter of fact.

The police officer, who goes by the name of Officer Daniels (Pat Healy), is really just a prank caller who gets the whole fast-food joint in a bother when he says that an employee named Becky (Dreama Walker) stole money from a customer's purse. Due to Sandra's willingness to cooperate this official, she takes Becky into the back of the fast food restaurant and interrogates her by doing what the cop tells her to do over the phone - by going through her purse, taking her cell-phone, and eventually, stripping her of her clothes.

Now Sandra's character just happens to be a test subject for what seems to be the Milgram Experiment, where people would shock subjects who got a question wrong when asked. But instead of Sandra stepping back and thinking about how absurd this situation is, she just gives into every last thing the cop tells her to do. She even calls her fiancee (Bill Camp) to come in and watch her. When the cop tells him to smack her ass and force her to perform oral sex, of course, nobody thinks twice about it.

I can fully get behind what the director Craig Zobel was doing, or at least trying to do. For an hour and fifteen minutes, COMPLIANCE works as one of the most disturbing films that you will ever watch. It's hard to watch - and I'm guessing that is what Zobel was trying to do. However, I'm still trying to understand what Zobel means by the last fifteen minutes.

This isn't a complete spoiler, since it was based on a case from 2004. At the end of the film, the girl apparently admitted of going through with everything not because she was afraid, but because she felt like she had to. The fiancee doesn't talk to Sandra after that night because he knew he fucked up. And Sandra, who is a really well-thought out character up until this point, doesn't admit to her mistakes and makes us feel like we should pity her.

Sandra's character was always about obediance - obediance at the work place through her employees and obediance with the law. Yet, whenever she put someone in charge with the situation, such as her fiancee or another employee, every time they would mention how stupid it is, and every time she would snap at them and tell them to obey the law. Not that Sandra's character is completely likable, but probably the most humane - she is just as much of a victim as Becky is.

However, Sandra admits to an interviewer (Jeffery Grover) that she don't feel like she should be in trouble with this situation, due to her being victimized and lied to. I'm not sure what Zobel is really trying to say - should we pity this poor woman, or should we laugh at her at how stupid she is? At any time she could have called the fast-food's supervisor, or the real police, or just hang up the phone. Because honestly, what cop calls on the phone?

And like the film reminds us with the title card at the end of the movie, stories like the one in COMPLIANCE happen all the time and there have been over 70 of these cases reported. So should we feel bad for everybody involved? Or should we just fucking laugh at these fools?

In the way, the thesis statement to COMPLIANCE feels like that Zobel is just trying to tell us that he thinks people are really fucking stupid, and maybe that's true. But then shouldn't COMPLIANCE be a metaphor as to what people really think about this film?

I'm sure as hell not going to be watching COMPLIANCE again, not because I didn't like it, but because I don't need to. One viewing is enough for me. It's not going to end up on any top ten list and Zobel isn't going to be the Jesus Christ of cinema. However, if COMPLIANCE serves that purpose as to a one-watch wonder, I can dig that. Like all of the REQUIEM FOR A DREAMs, the CLOCKWORK ORANGEs, and UN CHIEN ANDALOUs, COMPLIANCE just fits in there, but we really don't need to think about it anymore than what we just did.