8/10/15: Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here

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Adam Butcher, Alexander Conti, alpha males, Andre Chemetoff, Arnold Pinnock, Balmorhea, Bryan Murphy, bullies, Canadian films, cinema, co-writers, correctional officers, Dewshane Williams, Dog Pound, drama, emotional abuse, English-language debut, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, first-time actors, guard-prisoner relationships, hunger strike, independent films, indie dramas, inmates, Jane Wheeler, Jeff McEnery, Jeremie Delon, juvenile detention facility, juvenile offenders, K'Naan, Kim Chapiron, Lawrence Bayne, Lynne Adams, male friendships, Mateo Morales, mental abuse, Michael Morang, mother-son relationships, Movies, multiple writers, Nikkfurie, non-professional actors, pecking order, physical abuse, power dynamics, power struggles, prison films, prison rape, prison riot, rape, remakes, Scum, Shane Kippel, Sheitan, Slim Twig, suicide, Taylor Poulin, Trent McMullen, William Ellis, writer-director, youth in trouble

Humans are amazingly resilient animals. We can endure any number of extreme climates, fight back against overwhelming odds and turn veritable wastelands into virtual paradises. We can ponder questions both basic and metaphysical, learn to do just about anything we set our minds to and wrestle the world at large into submission by sheer force of our nearly boundless will. Humans can do all of this (and more) with surprisingly little: all we really need is air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat and a little something to keep the elements off of our heads.

While these biological necessities go without saying, humans also need something that’s a little harder to categorize, a little more difficult to study in a lab. We also need hope. Hope that bad situations can become better, hope that we can achieve our dreams by working hard, hope that we can not only survive, on a day-to-day basis, but find some measure of personal happiness and satisfaction. Humans need hope just as much as we need sustenance and oxygen: without either one, we’re just empty husks of decaying meat, carcasses too stubborn to know that we’re already dead.

There is no hope in French writer-director Kim Chapiron’s Dog Pound (2010), although that’s not really surprising: after all, there was precious little hope in his shocking debut, Sheitan (2006), either. As a filmmaker, Chapiron possesses an almost supernatural ability to submerge his characters (and his audience) into such unrelentingly dark, tragic and terrible situations that the very concept of hope is both elusive and rather laughable. We know that Chapiron’s characters are all doomed from the very first frame: that they often don’t recognize this futility makes their inevitable struggles even more sad. These characters aren’t waving their arms for rescue: they’re thrashing around, frantically, as their increasingly tired bodies drift further and further from the shore, closer to their ultimate ends than they are to any new beginnings.

Essentially a remake of the grim and unrelenting British prison film, Scum (1979), Chapiron’s English-language debut (the film is Canadian but set in Montana) concerns the Enola Vale Youth Correctional Facility and the various individuals who are imprisoned there, as well as the ones doing the imprisoning. We’re quickly introduced to three inmates who will become our entry-way into this particular world: 16-year-old Ecstasy dealer/born victim, Davis (Shane Kippel); 15-year-old repeat offender/car-jacker Angel (Mateo Morales) and 17-year-old hot-head/nominal protagonist, Butch (Adam Butcher).

After being thrown into the facility (Butch has been transferred to Enola Vale after laying a ferocious beat-down on an abusive guard at his previous facility), the trio are quickly brought up to speed by Superintendent Sands (Trent McMullen) and the boys’ immediate authority figure, CO Goodyear (Lawrence Bayne). The rules are easy: do everything you’re told, behave yourself and walk the straight and narrow. The boys who manage to do that become “trustees” and earn more responsibilities, perks and freedom, along with signifying black shirts. The ones who don’t follow the rules get orange jump suits and a one-way ticket to “Special Unit” or, in extreme cases, solitary confinement.

As with any prison film (or actual prison, for that matter), day-to-day life in Dog Pound revolves around a strictly observed pecking order: the alpha dog gets to call the shots and dispense the punishment in whatever way he sees fit. In this particular case, the alpha dog is one seriously scary bully by the name of Banks (first-time actor/former prisoner Taylor Poulin, in a genuinely frightening performance), a character who takes an immediate dislike to both Davis and Butch, albeit for different reasons.

In Davis, Banks and his cronies, Looney (comedian Jeff McEnery) and Eckersley (Bryan Murphy, another first-time actor), see the quintessential weak link, the eternal victim that’s as vital to any bully as oxygen is to those aforementioned humans. They steal his new boots, envy his short sentence, submit him to constant abuse and, in a particularly devastating moment, subject him to a particularly violent sexual assault. Davis is the naive lamb, the chosen sacrifice for those too hard and jaded to feel anything besides hatred and the need to dominant. He’s the face of every petty drug offender tossed into the correctional system, the minnows that feed the sharks.

With Butch, the bullies see something altogether different: a genuine threat to their established social order. In order to maintain his position at the top, Banks must bend Butch to his will, show the pugilistic teen that he may have been able to take out a CO but he’ll never stand against Banks and his minions. While destroying Davis is “pure entertainment” for Banks and his crew, taking Butch down is something much more important: it’s a matter of survival, plain and simple.

As Davis, Butch and, to a much lesser extent, Angel (Morales ends up with the least screen-time, overall, leaving his character rather under-developed) try to negotiate these increasingly choppy waters, CO Goodyear tries to reach the youths through a combination of “tough love” and an unyielding need to do the right thing, even when the right thing isn’t the most pleasant thing. He’s not a perfect man, by any stretch of the imagination: over-worked, under-paid, given to sporadic moments of anger and too thin-stretched to ever affect much change, Goodyear, at the very least, tries. That all of his goodwill becomes undone in one tragic, accidental moment is, unfortunately, to be expected: there is no hope for anyone at Enola Vale, whether they’re behind the bars or in front of them.

This, ultimately, is both the film’s source of strength and its ultimate weakness: since there is no hope for anyone, Dog Pound is an unflinching, full-throttle descent into a literal hell on earth. The camera doesn’t cut away, we get no reprieve from anything that has happened or is about to happen. Even when the characters find some tiny measures of individual happiness, such as when Davis regales the other boys with made-up stories about outrageous sexual dalliances and becomes, if only momentarily, the closest thing he’ll get to “respected,” there’s always the notion that more misery, tragedy and gloom lies just around the corner.

In one of the film’s most subtle, if icky, moments, Butch immobilizes a wandering cockroach by spitting on it until the crawling critter is stuck fast in a globular prison of phlegm and saliva. The insect twitches and moves, compulsively, doing its best to break free, to pull itself from its sticky bonds and scurry off into the safety of the nearest dark corner. By the morning, however, the cockroach is still in the exact same position, drowned in a tiny pool of Butch’s spit. Despite what it might have thought, the roach never had a chance: it was dead the minute Butch’s spit nailed it to the floor, whether it knew it or not. In Dog Pound, the differences between the youthful offenders and the dead roach are many but the similarities? Infinite.

Despite its constantly dreary subject matter, Dog Pound is beautifully made and exquisitely acted, no small feat considering the non-professional status of a good half-dozen of its cast members (many of whom, like Poulin, are actually youth offenders, themselves). Andre Chemetoff’s cinematography captures the inherent grit and claustrophobic quality of the facility perfectly, while the subtle, moody score (featuring the work of instrumental ensemble Balmorhea, among others) counters the often sudden, stunning violence to masterful effect. As with Sheitan, it’s obvious that Chapiron is a filmmaker in full command of every aspect of his craft.

For all of this, however, Dog Pound is still pretty difficult to recommend. The reason, of course, goes back to the point I’ve been hammering this whole time: there is absolutely no hope to be found here, in any way, shape or form. This isn’t to say that every – or even any – film needs to end happily: this is to say that Dog Pound makes a particular point of pounding each and every character so deep into the ground that there’s no possible outcome but the one we get. Each and every victory is false, any and all attempts at understanding or evolution are met with the harshest possible retributions. There is no need for comic relief here, no hope of any of the protagonists coming out on top of their individual struggles. If there is any kind of message to Dog Pound, it’s as basic, cynical and bleak as possible: if you end up in this situation, you are completely, totally and irreparably fucked.

As an example of “feel-bad cinema,” Dog Pound is nearly peerless: this is the kind of film destined to ruin any good mood, turn any optimist into a card-carrying misanthrope. While the world around us can be a harsh, grim place, the world inside Enola Vale is nothing but gray: a million little variations of the shade, infecting every single person that steps behind its walls.

It’s tempting to say that Dog Pound is the kind of film that could change anyone’s opinion about the correctional system (or, at the very least, the youth correctional system) but that just isn’t true: the guards don’t shoulder an inordinate amount of the blame here any more than the inmates do. This is not a tale of power-mad authority figures trying to beat their wards into submission, nor is it a story about hard-working correctional officers dealing with the soul-killing every-day business of keeping individuals locked away from society.

At its heart, Dog Pound is a story about average people making (and continuing to make) terrible decisions, the kind of decisions that can bring nothing but pain to all around them. This is a film about wasted youth, about squandered loyalty and altruistic intent blown to pieces about the terrible reality of the human condition. This is a tragedy, in every sense of the word. This is a hopeless film about hopeless people in a hopeless place, crafted by a singularly unique, uncompromising filmmaker. If you can stomach it, Dog Pound will rip your beating heart from your chest and smash it to smithereens on the floor. There is truth to be found here, some fractured beauty and hints at what could have been, under far different circumstances.

There’s a lot to find and appreciate in Kim Chapiron’s Dog Pound but hope? That, my friends, is one commodity that’s in perilously short supply.

4/27/15: An Army of One

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1960s cinema, action films, auteur theory, Bill Mullikin, Bob Newhart, Bobby Darin, cinema, dark films, Dirty Harry, Don Siegel, dramas, Escape From Alcatraz, Fess Parker, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, frontline, G.I.s, Harold Lipstein, Harry Guardino, Hell Is For Heroes, insubordination, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, James Coburn, Joseph Hoover, Leonard Rosenman, Mike Kellin, Movies, Nick Adams, nihilistic films, power struggles, Richard Carr, Robert Pirosh, set in 1940s, set in France, Steve McQueen, The Killers, war movies, World War II

Filmmaking is a lot like cooking, if you think about it: give five different chefs the exact same ingredients and you’re likely to come up with five very different dishes. Ditto for filmmaking: give five different filmmakers the exact same tropes, conventions, themes and scenarios and you’re going to end up with five very different films. Case in point: action auteur Don Siegel’s Hell Is For Heroes (1962). On the outside, the film looks much like many other World War II-set action films: big cast of well-known actors…intense front-line action sequences…dramatic interplay between the soldiers. Digging deeper, however, it’s easy to see that this particular war film bears more than a passing resemblance to similarly dark, paranoid films in Siegel’s canon such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and The Killers (1964). The result? A tense, nihilistic and constantly odd study in hubris, obsession and heroism, courtesy of the guy who would, one day, gift us with Dirty Harry (1971).

We jump right into the action on the front-line of the Allied offensive, in France, circa 1944. A small American squadron, led by Sgts. Larkin (Harry Guardino) and Pike (Fess Parker aka TV’s Daniel Boone), has been charged with holding the line against the German offensive. As the squad, which includes motor-mouthed Pvt. Corby (actor/singer Bobby Darin), laconic Cpl. Henshaw (James Coburn), Pvt. Kolinsky (Mike Kellin) and Pvt. Cumberly (Bill Mullikin), celebrate their upcoming return home, they receive a new member: Pvt. Reese (Steve McQueen). Reese is a sullen, surly, standoffish badass who seems to have a past with Sgt. Pike and a problem with the bottle.

While Reese lugs several steamer trunks’ worth of emotional baggage with him, his appearance also foretells a bit of bad luck for the squad: not only aren’t they going to get to go home but military brass has decreed that the squad be split, stretching the already thin crew to a breaking point. While Pike takes most of the men further down the way, Larkin and his tiny six-man crew are charged with holding the line all on their lonesome.

The problem, of course, is that a far larger German force is camped out just over the rise, patiently waiting to bomb the ever-loving shit out of the stragglers. As the extremely unpleasant but eminently capable Reese butts heads with Larkin over their next course of action, the rest of the team are caught in the crosshairs. When Reese comes up with a brazen, impossibly dangerous plan to take out the nearby German pillbox, however, he sets in motion a series of events that will test the squads loyalty, their resilience and their very wills to survive.

Despite its familiar trappings, Hell Is For Heroes is a decidedly odd duck. For one thing, the evocative black-and-white cinematography (courtesy of Harold Lipstein) frequently calls to mind film noir and German Expressionist filmmaking: full of hard, deep shadows and an overwhelmingly sinister atmosphere, there’s something intensely unsettling about the film, even during its lighter moments. There’s also the film’s rigid, almost stage-bound sense of blocking: combined with the sharp dialogue (legendary screenwriter Robert Pirosh wrote the film, along with Richard Carr), the movie often feels like a stage play, although this ends up working to its benefit, heightening the eerie sense of unreality.

Siegel, as expected, is a deft hand with the action sequences (the film’s final 20 minutes are one long, sustained battle that’s a masterpiece of chaos and carnage) but the connecting tissue is where the film really stands out: the midpoint sequence, which consists of the G.I.s setting up an elaborate “early warning system,” is almost ludicrously detailed and leisurely paced, yet still manages to be impossibly tense and pulse-pounding. The human-level drama is even better: McQueen’s thoroughly unlikable Reese swings wildly at any and everyone around him and the audience soaks up the benefit.

In fact, I’m hard-pressed to recall another performance of McQueen’s that is quite this unpleasant and cold: even the flinty-eyed Frank Bullitt had a basic degree of humanity that seems to be lacking in Reese. Obsessed with proving himself right, completely dismissive of authority, misogynistic and arguably misanthropic, Pvt. Reese is, perhaps, one of the single most unqualified heroes in the history of the biz. Look closer, however, and McQueen’s world-weary eyes almost (almost) tell a different story. His latter-half heroism isn’t so much a last-minute Hail Mary as it is the natural culmination of his inherent stubbornness: Reese is more than willing to die to prove himself right.

While McQueen is a reliable marquee draw, the rest of the Hell Is For Heroes cast is a veritable embarrassment of riches. Guardino and Parker are both excellent as the guys (grudgingly) in charge, with Parker possessing the absolutely perfect blend of authority and down-home humility. Nick Adams turns in a slightly goofy, if likable, performance as the tag-along Polish soldier, Homer, while Coburn is great as the reserved Henshaw: you know a film has a fantastic cast when an actor of Coburn’s stature is, effectively, relegated to second-tier status but he brings an easy warmth to the proceedings that are completely expected and always appreciated.

The two big surprises, however, end up coming on the lighter side of things: Bobby Darin’s conniving, perpetually scheming Pvt. Corby is a classic character and Darin plays him with complete gusto. At times approximating Lou Costello, Darin provides much of the film’s comic relief and never wears out his welcome, high praise for the type of character that normally gets under your skin, fast. The other surprise is Bob Newhart’s delightful performance as the bumbling, over-his-head Pvt. Driscoll. From his entrance (crashing into a tree with his jeep) all the way to the show-stopper where he commandeers a German phone line and proceeds to feed the enemy fake intel, Newhart is sheer perfection, his timing pitch-perfect and his hang-dog, malleable face so essential to the film’s (occasionally) deeply-set sense of humanity. Driscoll often reminded me of the similarly bumbling Radio O’Reilly, making me wonder if this might have served as inspiration for Gary Burghoff’s iconic character: the mind practically boggles!

Ultimately, Hell Is For Heroes is a continually surprising film, a feat which certainly stands as one of its greatest assets. From the opening all the way through to the purposefully ambiguous finale, which skips the expected emotional payoff and gives us something decidedly more open-ended, Siegel’s film defies conventions and arrives at an altogether more interesting destination. Less interested with easy definitions of “heroism” than he is with the reality of the situation (depending on the angle you view it from, Reese’s actions could easily fall under the umbrella of “insubordination,” “insanity” or even “manslaughter”), Siegel turns in another complex, nuanced and disturbing examination of the evil that men do, even when they do it in service of “the greater good.” In other words, just another day at the office for one of the all-time greats.

7/23/14: Red Light Morality

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Adrien Brody, based on a book, Black Box, Cam Gigandet, Clifton Collins Jr., Das Experiment, David Banner, degradation, dehumanization, Ethan Cohn, Fisher Stevens, Forest Whitaker, humiliation, Jason Lew, morality, Paul T. Scheuring, power struggles, prison break, prison films, psychological torture, rape, social experiments, Stanford Prison Experiment, The Experiment, Travis Fimmel, writer-director

While most people, if asked, would probably describe themselves as having some sort of moral compass, it really all comes down to a matter of degrees. It’s often easy for people to follow moral codes when either the state or religion sets up the guidelines but remove those constructs and things get a bit iffier. The real problem, of course, tends to be those who are more “circumstantial moralists”: people who would abstain from theft while the clerk is watching but think nothing of nicking a pack of gum when his back is turned. As evidenced by the sheer volume of folks who think nothing of grabbing as much as they can for themselves, with no regards to others or a “greater good,” I’m inclined to say that we, as a society, have largely become circumstantial moralists: we have no problem doing the “right thing” when it’s mandated or when people are watching but tend to revert back to purely selfish needs when the camera isn’t pointed directly at us.

Writer/director Paul T. Scheuring’s The Experiment (2010) is yet another in a pretty long line of films that take the concept of a specific social experiment and uses it as a way to shine a light into the darkest recesses of the human psyche. In this case, the film re-examines the phenomenon of the Stanford Prison Experiment, although it’s also explicitly listed as both an adaptation of Mario Giordano’s novel Black Box and a remake of the German film, Das Experiment (2001), itself an adaptation of Black Box. Despite its slightly thorny genesis, The Experiment ends up being a fairly standard psychological drama, albeit one with more than its fair share of degrading situations and unpleasant scenarios. At the end of the day, however, the film ends up being just another example of the evil that men do when given free rein and how a complacent society is just as guilty as the monsters it allows to roam the land.

For those not aware, the Stanford Prison Experiment was a real social experiment that lasted for all of six days in 1971. In the experiment, a group of 24 men was divided into “prisoners” and “guards,” using the basement of an old Stanford University building as a mock “prison.” The purpose of the experiment was to test how subjects would break down into power relationships, based on their “roles,” but the whole thing ended up being a pretty spectacular disaster. The “guards” turned into brutal authority figures, using violence and psychological torture to break down the “prisoners,” all of which was allowed by the scientists running the test. Needless to say, very few academics will go on record as supporting psychological torture and the tests were shut down post-haste, leaving the whole failed experiment as a sort of sociological shorthand for unexpectedly brutal, authoritarian experiments on conflict study/resolution. Suffice to say that, over forty years later, the Stanford Prison Experiment still stands as a notable black eye for the world of psychology.

For the most part, The Experiment doesn’t veer far from this basic premise: a group of 26 men, all from different backgrounds and walks of life, are brought to an abandoned prison facility, separated into “guards” and “prisoners” and told to follow a set of five rules. When the rules are violated, punishment must be swift and unflinching: if rule-breakers are not suitably handled within 30 minutes of their violations, a red light will go on, signalling an end to the experiment. Since each of the men are set to earn $1000/day for their participation, it’s in everyone’s best interests to make sure that the light never goes on. This, of course, leads to the film’s central conflict/point: if anything goes, as long as the red light doesn’t come on, how can there possibly be any moral standard or guidelines? The short answer, of course, is that there can’t be: once the experiment revolves around punishing “wrongdoers,” a Pandora’s box is opened, unleashing all manner of horrors upon the “guards” and their unwilling charges.

We meet several of the test participants but two principals emerge pretty early on. The first is Travis (Adrien Brody), who serves as our “every-man” protagonist, a kind-hearted, smart, altruistic guy who’s just lost his job, met a new girl and wants to use his earnings to follow her to India for some good, old-fashioned spiritual awakening. Travis is the kind of guy who attends peace rallies but has no problem putting the hammer down on obnoxious, violent pro-war party-crashers. He’s a good guy, with a capital “G,” and he’ll come to represent the prisoner faction. The other principal player is Michael (Forrest Whitaker), a soft-spoken, shy, slightly nerdy 40-year-old who still lives at home with his brow-beating, ultra-religious mother. Despite his friendly, laid-back attitude, we get the distinct impression that Michael may not be playing with a full deck. Faster than you can say “Overlook Hotel,” Michael has been made a “guard” and has begun what can best be described as a “Nicholsonian” slide into complete bat-shit crazy territory.

Everyone else seems to fall in line somewhere between these two polar opposites: on the prisoner side, you have Nix (Clifton Collins, Jr.), whose tattoos seem suspiciously reminiscent of real Aryan Nation prison tats; Benjy (Ethan Cohn), a gawky, comic-book obsessed diabetic; and Oscar (Jason Lew), the only openly gay member of the group. On the guard side, we have Chase (Cam Gigandet), a ridiculously macho, sadistic “bro-dog”; Helweg (Travis Fimmel), a guyliner-wearing sycophant who follows whoever happens to be the current alpha male and Bosch (David Banner), a kind-hearted individual who becomes increasingly uneasy as “upholding the rules” quickly devolves into “inhuman torture.”

And devolve it does…rather quickly, too, if I might add. After an impromptu basketball game ends with Bosch’s bloody nose, Chase decides that a little punishment is in order and forces the prisoners to do push-ups. Helweg sees Chase as some sort of conquering hero but Michael isn’t so sure…until, that is, he comes to believe that the prisoners all need to be knocked down a peg or two. Targeting Travis, who is seen as the defacto leader, Michael initiates psychological warfare against the other man: he’s chained to his cell wall overnight, wearing only his underwear; blasted with a fire extinguisher; has his head forcibly shaved and, in one of the film’s most horrifying/nauseating moments, is repeatedly urinated on. Despite what they throw at him, however, Travis refuses to break or resort to violence: the rest of the prisoners continue to look up to him and the guards’ hold remains tenuous, at best. Michael is not a man to be trifled with, however, and power can be a heady drug. The harder that Travis resists, the harder that Michael strikes back, culminating in a shocking act of violence that ends up pitting the prisoners against the guards in final, bloody conflict.

Although The Experiment is neither a particularly original nor an especially thought-provoking film, there are a few elements that unnecessarily hobble the production. Chief among the issues, unfortunately, is Whitaker’s completely over-the-top performance. Normally an incredibly reliable presence, Whitaker seems to be channeling the worst excesses of Nicholas Cage here and his transition from “slightly subdued” to “full-bore loony” is so quick as to be virtually non-existent. When Whitaker really takes off, such as the absolutely awful bit where he screams, “Time to clean the TOY-A-LETT!,” at Brody’s character, the film pretty much grinds to a halt around him and becomes something closer to parody than drama. There is one fairly brilliant moment that gives visual representation to the notion that power gives men a boner but, aside from that bit, it’s almost impossible to take him seriously which makes suspension of disbelief a bit of a problem.

Brody, for his part, turns in one of those standard-issue performances that are just tuned-in enough but no substitute for his better genre performances in films like Splice (2009) or Predators (2010). This is more along the lines of his work in Wrecked (2010) or Giallo (2009): good enough but too prone to histrionics to be truly affecting.

The rest of the cast ends up being a mixed bag, although Cam Gigandet is a thoroughly repulsive presence as the rape-happy Chase, a character so loathsome that he seems to have been wholly subbed in from something like the modern remake of I Spit on Your Grave (2010). Travis Fimmel, by contrast, is a complete non-entity as Helweg, a character who ends up being even less three-dimensional than the rest of the paper-thin characters. In one of the film’s strangest moves, veteran weirdo and all-around awesome character actor Fisher Stevens gets what amounts to a cameo: they couldn’t have made him one of the test subjects?

There are plenty of tonal issues and more than a few plot holes (the resolution, in particular, makes less and less sense the more you think about it) but the uneven, generally OTT performances are definitely the crippling blow here. The film isn’t short on ideas, even if none of them are particularly interesting, but it’s impossible to take anything seriously when Whitaker is stomping around, bellowing, rolling his eyes and cracking prisoner skulls like he was a fairytale ogre. Writer/director Scheuring is probably best known as the creator of the TV series Prison Break, which would seem to make him a natural fit for something like this. There is plenty of “prison drama”-type brutality on display here (that urination scene will stick with you for a long, long time…trust me) but little of really seems to hit with any impact.

Minus issues like the overacting and over-reliance on cheesy slo-mo effects, The Experiment would be a well-made, if rather unexceptional prison-drama/thriller. As it stands, however, the film is, by turns, genuinely cringe worthy and unintentionally humorous. There are scattered moments of real power and impact but, for the most part, this has all been done before, to greater effect. Unless you’re an Adrien Brody or Forest Whitaker completest (or a prison-flick aficionado), skipping The Experiment is probably a safe bet: if the red light doesn’t go on after thirty minutes, you’ll know that you made the right choice.