Would just be easier and quicker, I think.

Compliance — 2.5/5

I've had a low simmering fascination with the content of this movie since it was released, given the ridiculous premise made more ridiculous by it having happened for real. And so I finally watched it!! And, honestly, I'm still a little fascinated by it though I can't say I enjoyed it. I think it's a movie not really made for enjoyment. It's psychological torture porn, and it keeps descending further and further, that same one note getting louder and louder. Without really trying, the movie helps you understand why people would allow this to happen. We're too afraid to say no to a person in perceived power. They push on the little swords that dangle over each person's heads that are always so close to being cut. They push on our little shames. It's not our "badness" that haunts us, it's our cowardice to face those shames. The movie's better knowing that everything in here pretty much happened as is. Knowing that pushes it from torture porn into the everyday surrealism of reality. But I wonder if the movie would have been more compelling if it played it more clever. More of the befores, more of the afters, mixed in with the then-present. These are normal people. "We were just following orders." It's more than the banality of evil, it's this humiliation that works beneath that, this fucking lemming behavior that allows us to hurt one rather than be seen as apart from the behemoth of the social collective. You'd rather keep your eyes down rather than raising your hand and having all eyes look on you.