Out of Compliance

thesar-2

(I might be out of compliance myself as this review might contain some minor spoilers. You've been warned.)

Compliance was truly one of the hardest films for me to watch. And no, it was not because of the following:

1. Extreme Gore. 2. Gratuitous Violence and Language. 3. Child Abuse. 4. A Guest Appearance by Snooki.

It was because of stupidity. Unbelievable and downright contemptuous ignorance. Sure, we (or at least my reader and I) live in a country that mostly stands behind the likes of The Jersey Shore, The Kardashians and most recently, some trailer trash honey bunch kid that I've only heard word of mouth about.

But…the "inspired by a true story" morons shown here in Compliance actually make me believe there are real-life people getting duped over the phone by scam artists. I honestly thought: if they did exist, it would have to be .00009% of the population. I was sooo wrong.

What started off in stereotypical, but welcoming, independent film style, Compliance showed us a busy Friday night at a chicken fast food joint. I've worked in that industry many moons ago and what they showed was fairly accurate, so it was kinda nice trip down memory lane. Until…

Until, the single-digit I.Q. supervisor (oh, and that's spot on for most fast food superiors I've worked for) receives a phone call from a police detective claiming the blonde throw-away cashier stole money from a customer. This is about less than a fifth of the way in, and from there on, my mind went numb.

You see, the detective has the grade-school dropout supervisor perform certain "tasks" to prove the young female's innocence. At very first, the objectives are small and innocent. In a heartbeat, however, they snowball into the extreme and highly questionable; such as strip searching the employee…and that's the least of the duties requested.

What I just provided are the "minor spoilers" I previously warned of. There's so much more that happens, as part of the investigation, to this employee of which I refuse to refer to as a "victim."

The reason my mind went numb was because by the second or third order by the officer over the phone I would have requested, no demanded, he come down to restaurant and wonder why he hadn't already. My "inspired by a true story" movie would've been over in 20 minutes because I would've called this guy out.

Recently, I've heard people online say: "I don't know what I would've done in this situation" and "Let the conversations begin!" Well, it's painfully obvious what I would've done, so my "discussion," or conversation, would've been short and simple. And it was extremely frustrating watching these imbeciles – including the strip-searched young female suspect – not do a single thing right.

I like to write down my thoughts first before I read other people's opinions/reviews. So, currently, I am ignorant to why people gave this movie such praise. I will say the acting was very believable – I have known my share of idiots and it was well shot – so there are no complaints from me there.

What I simply couldn't get past was the ridiculous reactions from these so-called human beings. How many people would you know would readily agree to begin slicing up their arm with a butcher knife if some stranger called them on the phone and informed them: "To get the bugs out, you must start cutting up your arm! Do it! Find a knife now! There's no time; those bugs can get deeper into your system!"

That may sound far-fetched, but there you go. That's this movie. If you would like to watch painful and hard-to-watch "true stories" of some dense people, save some minutes by simply watching an episode of either Jersey Shore, Kardashians or that honey dish of embarrassment everyone's talking about.

score 3/10

thesar-2 16 September 2012

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2674627/