StunnaKrypto
Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.
Onlinewsma
Absolutely Brilliant!
Curapedi
I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
TaryBiggBall
It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.
RichardSRussell-1
The Milgram obedience experiments are justly famous in the field of psychology, and an interesting movie could undoubtedly have been made about them, but this is not it.Peter Sarsgaard sleepwalks thru the Milgram role with almost no affect, and Winona Ryder is wasted as his devoted wife. Writer/Director Michael Almereyda seems more interested in cutesy cinematic tricks (like constantly breaking the 4th wall) than in telling a coherent story, and the viewer is often left wondering "Who is this guy?" and "What just happened?". I DID learn that Milgram was the researcher behind the original "6 degrees of separation" experiments as well, and it would've been interesting to spend a little more time on that story line instead of boring living- room conversations about academic tenure and publishing.
runamokprods
Intelligent, challenging, semi-experimental view of psychological scientist Stanley Milgram and his seminal early 60s experiment that proved most people would follow orders that went against all they believe in - and caused them great personal stress - even to the point of believing they were causing bodily harm or death, if they felt it was expected of them and they wouldn't be blamed.Almereyda, long one of our bravest and least conventional film-makers, uses his tendencies to break from traditional storytelling to his advantage here. He breaks our usual illusion of 'reality' in a movie with black and white projections as parts of sets, the main character addressing the camera, sometimes about events that haven't happened yet, and even a (very funny) literal 'elephant in the room'. These playful, Brechtian devices distance us and keep us from emotionally getting lost in the story in the way a traditional Hollywood bio-pic would have us do. But it serves to heighten key intellectual questions about Milgram and his work – which also manipulated reality, and implied a certain artificial distancing between Milgram and the human race.Like a film, Milgram's experiment manipulated people, told them stories, to get them to react a certain way, and Almereyda makes us ponder a lot of these uneasy connections between art and science.Not all of these cinematic gambits work, and sometimes ideas get repeated beyond effectiveness. But I'll take this kind of fresh, jarring approach to looking at a man and the ideas his work over a traditional, shallower Hollywood approach any day.
E Tayfun Arli
It would have been great to end the movie with clips from Vietnam, Nazi camps, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Syria now, and many other atrocities around the world where sick leaders use this exact flow in human nature to get them commit horrible crimes. Film itself; Peter Sarsgaard is great as he is in every movie he is in, it is a good come back (hopefully it is come back) for Winona Ryder who is another great actor. The other characters in the movie are incredibly well cast and bring good reality to the decades the story has passed. I particularly love the scene with lawyers who argue about the experiment, fantastic faces and expressions.
Anirban Santra
I am not a critique. But I am interested to understand the justification of all the institutionalized activities around the globe which includes the infliction of pain to a different person, under a false sense of command and no-apparent responsibility. The work of this movie, is excellent and throws you into the deep abyss of the darkness of the human soul, where due to our education system and beliefs, we always tend to forget to question our action and just become mass followers. Well you can disagree as much as you want, but if you haven't done it, then you are not human, since human live in a society and you have to follow the unwritten rules, without question.I always wondered how people follow blindly and then create a false sense of justification saying he/she was unaware, or not responsible, or simply 'I was deceived'. Let them get a heart attack and my response to them would be that I am not responsible for your health.Please excuse the grammar but do not miss this movie. 10/10.
