Compliance

Name: Compliance
Genre: Drama, Thriller, Crime
Released: August 17, 2012
Duration: 90 min
Rating: 68
Cast: Ann Dowd, Bill Camp, Dreama Walker, Pat Healy

2012

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 84 Ratings

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6.3

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6.3	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 84 Ratings

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Compliance

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Movie Details & Credits

Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: August 17, 2012 | R

Starring: Ann Dowd, Bill Camp, Dreama Walker, Pat Healy

Summary: Becky and Sandra aren’t the best of friends. Sandra is a middle-aged manager at a fast-food restaurant; Becky is a teenaged counter girl who really needs the job. One stressful day (too many customers and too little bacon), a police officer calls, accusing Becky of stealing money from a customer’s purse, which she vehemently denies. Sandra,Becky and Sandra aren’t the best of friends. Sandra is a middle-aged manager at a fast-food restaurant; Becky is a teenaged counter girl who really needs the job. One stressful day (too many customers and too little bacon), a police officer calls, accusing Becky of stealing money from a customer’s purse, which she vehemently denies. Sandra, overwhelmed by her managerial responsibilities, complies with the officer’s orders to detain Becky. This choice begins a nightmare that tragically blurs the lines between expedience and prudence, legality and reason. (Magnolia Pictures)… Expand

Director: Craig Zobel

Genre(s): Drama, Thriller, Crime

Rating: R

Runtime: 90 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Farran Smith Nehme

Aug 17, 2012

The actors in Compliance perform with thorough and chilling sincerity. Read full review

David Denby

Aug 20, 2012

Compliance is a small movie, but it provides insight into large and frightening events, like the voluntary participation of civilians in the terrible crimes of the last century. Read full review

James Berardinelli

Aug 16, 2012

The truth can indeed be stranger than fiction and, in this case, were the story to have originated in the imagination of the screenwriter, it could rightfully be criticized as artificial and contrived. But, disturbing and unlikely as it may be, this stuff actually happened, and pretty much as Craig Zobel relates it. Read full review

Justin Chang

Jul 13, 2012

In taut, gripping and deeply disturbing fashion, writer-director Craig Zobel measures the depths to which rational individuals will sink to obey a self-anointed authority figure in Compliance. Read full review

Roger Ebert

Aug 29, 2012

This is a well-made film, with plausible performances by all the leads, especially Ann Dowd. Read full review

Adam Litovitz

Aug 2, 2012

Compliance develops an intriguing premise intelligently, inquisitively and uncomfortably. Read full review

Joe Morgenstern

Aug 23, 2012

This nasty little bottom-feeder of a film is too condescending to be trusted, too manipulative to be believed, too turgid to be enjoyed, too shameless to be endured and, before and after everything else, too inept to make its misanthropic case. Read full review

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User Reviews

broyds

Feb 4, 2016

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It is one of those films that stays with you a while after watching. It is very thought provoking and you just can't believe what you are seeing at times. If this film hadn't been based off true events, I would have not enjoyed it as much, because you feelI thoroughly enjoyed this film. It is one of those films that stays with you a while after watching. It is very thought provoking and you just can't believe what you are seeing at times. If this film hadn't been based off true events, I would have not enjoyed it as much, because you feel that the events that take place can't possibly happen in real life, but the shocking fact is they did happen and this film has not been exaggerated!

Side note: you can't help but enjoy those boobies!… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

AWESOM-0

May 22, 2020

Such a brutal movie and it's so crazy to think that this happened and it's not exaggerated. I feel so terrible for the young woman who suffered through this and as hard as this is to watch, it probably helps raise awareness.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

beingryanjude

Sep 1, 2014

A fresh and gripping thriller that is intriguing from the very beginning. Performances from Ann Dowd and Dreama Walker allow this small film to soar high.

2 of 3 users found this helpful21

MarcDoyle

Aug 25, 2012

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Compliance is one of those movies that gets many thinking, "What the hell are these people doing? I'd never let this happen." (I was in that camp, knowing my fair share of Crim Pro.) Director Craig Zobel and star Pat Healey ("Officer Daniels") addressed our audience, stressing that it's not the people who are worried that they might get caught up in this sort of situation that worry them - it's those people who see it as a black and white no-brainer that these employees are idiots who are likely the same people that would likely fall prey to this situation, or the Milgram experiments. I kept thinking about Clooney's line from Michael Clayton - "Police don't call - they show up." As for the film, it's dramatic and interesting, but too much of the film is laser focused on the single night rather than on the post-call ramifications. I found it super interesting that the real-life Officer Daniels was acquitted of all charges - not in the film.… Expand

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

MarkAngel

Feb 5, 2013

It is what a contemporary drama film should be: carefully paced, slowly revealing, supported by strong performances and effective score. However, it lacks deeper and much more involved analysis of the problem especially since the story is based on actual events. The film barely elaborates onIt is what a contemporary drama film should be: carefully paced, slowly revealing, supported by strong performances and effective score. However, it lacks deeper and much more involved analysis of the problem especially since the story is based on actual events. The film barely elaborates on the issue presented. This means that, besides some questions arising at the very end, the film and most of the time relies on depiction and the potent shock value such visual suggestions contain.… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

ber

Aug 30, 2012

Everything about this movie is dumb. Not least the characters who must share an IQ of 75 between them. Along with the tedious pacing and sub par acting performances i'm at a loss as to why this is so highly rated.

3 of 4 users found this helpful31

luke_richardson

Feb 25, 2013

Compliance is just about one of the most abhorrent films I've ever seen.

In 2007, there were 70 exceptional cases were reported across to the American Police department. While they all had their own, unsettling idiosyncrasies, they were all loosely connected by subterfuge and prank calls.Compliance is just about one of the most abhorrent films I've ever seen.

In 2007, there were 70 exceptional cases were reported across to the American Police department. While they all had their own, unsettling idiosyncrasies, they were all loosely connected by subterfuge and prank calls. This is no Steve Penk or The Jerky Boys, but real vile cases of human maltreatment.

It's an extraordinary topic that is crying out to be debunked in an explorative, Errol Morris style documentary. Compliance isn't that film.

Writer/director Craig Zobel decides to focus this seeming pandemic on one exceptional example, based on a mélange of different real cases to make one mega-horrific fictional one. It's just another regular day at an Ohio fast food chain, until a meticulous prank caller convinces the restaurant manager (Ann Dowd) that one of her employees Becky, Gossip Girl's Dreama Walker, is being accused of stealing from a customer. What proceeds is a manipulating interrogation, where everyone idly agrees to whatever increasingly insane task the caller will have them do. Why? Without proving any of his credentials, the prank caller deceives everyone involved into believing that he is a police officer, and thus establishing his unobjectionable authority. By Compliance's nasty end, Becky is naked, humiliated, and sexually violated, and the audience are accomplices; watching on through guarded eyes and clenched fists.

Even though the story comes from a bastardised real place, Zobel really pushes the boundaries of plausibility. Not in a "stranger than fiction" way, but rather because the characterisation, narrative, and Zobel's misguided compulsion to tell it, is shallow. The ninety minute running time lingers for what feels like days and, whilst the repetitious sequences are relatively tame and implicit, it all feels incredibly ugly and exploitative; as if Zobel is forcing the audience to watch a security camera.

At it's most tenuous, one could wring-out a slapdash argument that the film is forcing the audience to look at this injustice like a reflexive meta-narrative, like Haneke's Funny Games. Unlike the unflinchingly austere Austrian, Zobel lacks directorial flare and balls to actually critique or comment on the true events and populace servility to the law.

Even when the film was snapped up at the Sundance Film Festival last year, it was met with notoriety, with walkouts and boos. Later, in a public Q&A, Zobel plainly admitted that the film is misogynistic. But for what reason? Zobel is trying to be forthright and polemical with Compliance, but simply projecting these images isn't enough to warrant a political license. An artless, meaningless, pseudo-video nasty that doesn't earn the discomfort it will leave you with.

My full review, and other things, right here:
www.theframeloop.com… Expand

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

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