!!!!! MILD SPOILERS !!!!!
DAS EXPERIMENT is a German psycho thriller inspired by " The Stanford Prison Experiment " from the 1970s which involved a bunch of volunteers some of whom acted as guards and some of whom acted as prisoners with the experiment being brought to a premature end because the guards were enjoying the power their authority gave them a little too much which endangered the volunteers who were prisoners
Unfortunately if you're aware of the background to Stanford you'll also be aware of how DAS EXPERIMENT is structured . Even more unfortunate is the fact that the character motivation isn't strong enough to make the movie work in a totally convincing manner . The guards make some light hearted comments to their colleague who's an Elvis impersonater so Elvis decides to give the prisoners a hard time which doesn't ring true . Perhaps the most confusing thing is how the previously mild mannered airline pilot decides to become an evil sadistic brute to the prisoners , there's no motivating incident to this change . There's another couple of niggles with the script. The hero is called Tarek Fahd which is surely a Turkish name which led me to believe there'd be some kind of racial or German war guilt subtext to the movie but after the story is ended it's obvious there is none while Dora is nothing more than a literary device there to save the day at the end
DAS EXPERIMENT isn't a dead loss however and I don't want to give the impression it's a bad movie - It's not ( Though it is spoiled by the script in some places ) and for such a small budget movie there's much tension and some impressive scenes , the best of which involves Tarek placed in a box where he begins to hallucinate about Dora due to sensory deprivation
This is the sort of European movie that Hollywood buys the rights to . Please don't remake it Mr Brukheimer . DAS EXPERIMENT may not be perfect but I never had the urge to switch it off either
DAS EXPERIMENT is a German psycho thriller inspired by " The Stanford Prison Experiment " from the 1970s which involved a bunch of volunteers some of whom acted as guards and some of whom acted as prisoners with the experiment being brought to a premature end because the guards were enjoying the power their authority gave them a little too much which endangered the volunteers who were prisoners
Unfortunately if you're aware of the background to Stanford you'll also be aware of how DAS EXPERIMENT is structured . Even more unfortunate is the fact that the character motivation isn't strong enough to make the movie work in a totally convincing manner . The guards make some light hearted comments to their colleague who's an Elvis impersonater so Elvis decides to give the prisoners a hard time which doesn't ring true . Perhaps the most confusing thing is how the previously mild mannered airline pilot decides to become an evil sadistic brute to the prisoners , there's no motivating incident to this change . There's another couple of niggles with the script. The hero is called Tarek Fahd which is surely a Turkish name which led me to believe there'd be some kind of racial or German war guilt subtext to the movie but after the story is ended it's obvious there is none while Dora is nothing more than a literary device there to save the day at the end
DAS EXPERIMENT isn't a dead loss however and I don't want to give the impression it's a bad movie - It's not ( Though it is spoiled by the script in some places ) and for such a small budget movie there's much tension and some impressive scenes , the best of which involves Tarek placed in a box where he begins to hallucinate about Dora due to sensory deprivation
This is the sort of European movie that Hollywood buys the rights to . Please don't remake it Mr Brukheimer . DAS EXPERIMENT may not be perfect but I never had the urge to switch it off either