Let's Review: Movie Review- The Experiment with Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker

From what I understand, this movie bears a very close resemblance to the Stanford prison experiment by Phillip Zimbardo (Author of "The Lucifer Effect"). Unfortunately I didn't read the book or anything related to Zimbardo's experiment before watching the movie. It didn't change the fact that the film was amazing. And scary.

As you can probably tell by my reviews I'm not going to spoil the ending. In fact, I'll try not to spoil too much in the movie either. I'll just touch on a few key points, hopefully enough to get anybody interested in these kinds of movies to want to check it out.

If you don't want to see a good man turn evil, don't watch this movie. It's scary to think about... a darkness that lies within each of us. When you feel powerful, you may feel that you're forced to do questionable things to maintain that power... or increase it. When you feel powerless you may find it hard to ignore your conscience and focus on your own survival.

The basic premise of the story is a group of men respond to an ad in the paper about an experiment paying a pretty decent sum of money for only two weeks of work. The experiment is simple: some of you will be playing guards in a makeshift prison while the rest will play the prisoners. There are rules in place that they must abide by otherwise the experiment is over and they will not get paid.

The limits of the rules are tested. The roles become more serious on both sides. Violence, despair, and questions of morality are all central points as you watch the men either fight or succumb. Usually it's both.

I'm reminded of the saying... Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's scary to think anyone of us could become the monsters we all hear about. Using violence to impose our will. It's scary but it happens.

This movie proves that. Whether or not this is exactly what happened during the Stanford prison experiments isn't the scary part. The scary part is not knowing what DID happen... how much worse it could have been... and if it will happen again.