MOVIEmeter
Top 5000
Down 57 this week

Compliance (2012)

6.5
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 6.5/10 from 11,643 users   Metascore: 68/100
Reviews: 108 user | 233 critic | 32 from Metacritic.com

When a prank caller convinces a fast food restaurant manager to interrogate an innocent young employee, no-one is left unharmed. Based on true events.

Director:

Writer:

Watch Trailer
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 2364 titles created 4 months ago
 
a list of 10000 titles created 2 months ago
 
a list of 2005 titles created 3 weeks ago
 
a list of 500 titles created 5 months ago
 
a list of 69 titles created 8 months ago
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: Compliance (2012)

Compliance (2012) on IMDb 6.5/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of Compliance.
4 wins & 15 nominations. See more awards »

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7/10 X  

Haunted by painful memories and increasing paranoia, a damaged woman struggles to re-assimilate with her family after fleeing an abusive cult.

Director: Sean Durkin
Stars: Elizabeth Olsen, Christopher Abbott, John Hawkes
The Sessions (2012)
Comedy | Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.2/10 X  

A man in an iron lung who wishes to lose his virginity contacts a professional sex surrogate with the help of his therapist and priest.

Director: Ben Lewin
Stars: John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy
Up (2009)
Animation | Adventure | Comedy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.3/10 X  

By tying thousands of balloons to his home, 78-year-old Carl sets out to fulfill his lifelong dream to see the wilds of South America. Russell, a wilderness explorer 70 years younger, inadvertently becomes a stowaway.

Directors: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
Stars: Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai
Robot & Frank (2012)
Comedy | Crime | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.1/10 X  

Set in the near future, an ex-jewel thief receives a gift from his son: a robot butler programmed to look after him. But soon the two companions try their luck as a heist team.

Director: Jake Schreier
Stars: Frank Langella, Liv Tyler, Peter Sarsgaard
Shame (2011)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

In New York City, Brandon's carefully cultivated private life -- which allows him to indulge his sexual addiction -- is disrupted when his sister arrives unannounced for an indefinite stay.

Director: Steve McQueen
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Lucy Walters, James Badge Dale
Arbitrage (2012)
Drama | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.7/10 X  

A troubled hedge fund magnate desperate to complete the sale of his trading empire makes an error that forces him to turn to an unlikely person for help.

Director: Nicholas Jarecki
Stars: Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Tim Roth
Bernie (2011)
Comedy | Crime | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.7/10 X  

In small-town Texas, the local mortician strikes up a friendship with a wealthy widow, though when he kills her, he goes to great lengths to create the illusion that she's alive.

Director: Richard Linklater
Stars: Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, Matthew McConaughey
Argo (2012)
Drama | History | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.9/10 X  

A dramatization of the 1980 joint CIA-Canadian secret operation to extract six fugitive American diplomatic personnel out of revolutionary Iran.

Director: Ben Affleck
Stars: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin
50/50 (2011)
Comedy | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X  

Inspired by a true story, a comedy centered on a 27-year-old guy who learns of his cancer diagnosis, and his subsequent struggle to beat the disease.

Director: Jonathan Levine
Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick
Take Shelter (2011)
Drama | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.5/10 X  

Plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself.

Director: Jeff Nichols
Stars: Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Tova Stewart
Comedy | Romance | Sci-Fi
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.1/10 X  

Three magazine employees head out on an assignment to interview a guy who placed a classified ad seeking a companion for time travel.

Director: Colin Trevorrow
Stars: Aubrey Plaza, Jake Johnson, Karan Soni
Moneyball (2011)
Biography | Drama | Sport
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's successful attempt to assemble a baseball team on a lean budget by employing computer-generated analysis to acquire new players.

Director: Bennett Miller
Stars: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
...
Supplier
...
...
...
Kevin
...
Marti
Nikiya Mathis ...
Connie
...
Julio
...
Harold
...
Van
Amelia Fowler ...
Brie
...
Customer
...
Detective Neals
...
Officer Morris
Matt Skibiak ...
Robert Gilmour (as Matthew Skibiak)
Edit

Storyline

At a fast food restaurant, the manager, Sandra, is having a bad day. Suddenly, she gets a phone call from a man claiming to be a police officer who has a complaint that one of her young female employees has stolen from a customer. At the orders of this authoritative sounding stranger, Sandra takes the apparent accused, Becky, to a back room to search her before she is picked up. Once there, the phone scammer manipulates the gullible personnel into participating in Becky's sexual humiliation that grows more twisted with every new sucker on the phone. Only when one final person has the conscience to revolt do they realize the crime they were tricked into, which the real police are hard pressed to solve. Written by Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Genres:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language and sexual content/nudity | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Official Sites:

|

Country:

Language:

Release Date:

26 September 2012 (France)  »

Also Known As:

Poslušnost  »

Box Office

Budget:

$270,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$16,427 (USA) (17 August 2012)

Gross:

$318,622 (USA) (26 October 2012)
 »

Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

Color:

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Goofs

When Becky is first stripping down, her hair is up/down between shots. See more »

Quotes

Supplier: You're fucked without bacon, I tell you that!
See more »

Connections

Featured in The 2013 Film Independent Spirit Awards (2013) See more »

Soundtracks

"The Unlucky Ones"
Performed by Admiral Twin
Written by John Russell, Jarrod Gollihare, Brad Becker, and Mark Carr
Published by MonkeyPuzzleTree Music Publishing LLC (ASCAP) and Mojoland/Universal Music Corporation (ASCAP)
See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.

User Reviews

 
If you're so superior, what would you do?
9 January 2013 | by (United States) – See all my reviews

Imagine you're an employee at the local fast food joint, who is spry, young, and just simply trying to make some cash to afford your dreams, whatever they may be. It's Friday, your busiest day, your boss is already edgy and upset because she understaffed and over $15,000 of food went bad the night before because someone left the freezer door open, and all you look forward to is a long listless weekend of relaxation. But for now, you have to tell your hungry, impatient customers that the supply of bacon and pickles is low, and you must deal with the normal, everyday order of the paying customer.

Then the phone rings and your boss answers it. It's a man claiming to be a police officer who says that they have surveillance video and a person here claiming that you stole money out of a customer's purse when they were not looking. Your boss calls you to the backroom, where you speak to the officer, and are treated like a true felon, though there is no evidence presented. The officer claims to have your general manager on the phone, and is instructing your boss to search your clothes, your purse, and every belonging you have. The requests to prove your guilty involves you to be strip-searched completely, and continues with more and more questionable procedures and more and more victims are involved as time goes on. It turns out the person on the other line is not a police officer, but a sadistic prank caller, whose motive isn't fully explained or maybe even explainable.

One could immediately write this all of as preposterous. That it is, but the truth it is as well. Over seventy cases in thirty different U.S. states were reported of a prank phone caller portraying a police officer, offering the same sort of story, requesting the suspect be strip-searched and forced to perform a number of indecent, inhumane acts that gradually become more humanly loathsome. The accused here is Becky, played by Dreama Walker, and the manager who is taking the orders from "Officer Daniels" (Pat Healy) is Sandra, played by Ann Dowd, who gives one of the fiercest performances of the year, sure to go unrecognized by the general public.

"Officer Daniels" fools the employees due to his calm assertiveness and his reassuring voice. When we finally see who he really is, he reminded me of the main villain "Charlie" in Trust, because of his shocking normality. He often compliments those who are going along in this procedure, notably Sandra, who becomes almost so smitten with his compliments that she begins to trust him more than she does her employee of some time. Sandra herself, overwhelmed by the busyness of the restaurant (the fictional fast food chain "ChickWich"), winds up getting more and more of her employees involved including the trustworthy Marty (Ashlie Atkinson), the loudmouth Kevin (Phillip Ettinger), and even her slightly inebriated fiancée Van (Bill Camp), making her somewhat more than a victim.

Yet, before you immediately write the characters off as "stupid" and view them as faceless teenagers mirroring those in a horror movie, where every decision is questionable, what would you do? Would you have been smarter? Would you not have been distracted by the abundance of customers waiting in line and the short of employees behind the counter? Oh, how easy it would've been to just comply with authority and not risk jeopardizing your business's reputation or employees. Sandra clearly just wants to obey authority and get things sorted out as quickly and as painlessly as possible. Before criticizing her, I can not say that I blame her or I would've done any differently.

Compliance seems to reiterate the famous "Milgram experiment," performed by Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1960's. Milgram tested to see how willingly people obey authority and how far they will go if they felt they were doing something important or beneficial to the authority in question. Compliance does this with a growing sense of tension for almost its entire runtime, and by the end, we are numb to the core. We have emotions and a reaction, yet we do not know how to formally show them or state them. We are simply left in cold, depressing shock.

Compliance builds terror a lot like the more identifiable thriller Phone Booth, and uses the same device of a directionless phone call to build up the suspense and nerve-rattling uncertainty. The mystery of every phone call, especially ones involving something as serious as this, is we are oblivious to the direction they will take. Both films expertly concoct an atmosphere of unsettling proportions, and they both make great use of the characters involved in the current predicament.

Craig Zobel's direction is unflinching and powerful, because of its intimacy and consistently suspenseful tone, and the material is conservative to the idea of possible sadism and reliant heavily on the elements of naturalism and the way things build over time. Compliance is one of the rawest, tensest, most incredibly potent films of the year. It questions our ethics, but we'd have to be in the situation at hand to have the appropriate response to its question.

Starring: Ann Dowd, Dreama Walker, Pat Healy, Ashlie Atkinson, Bill Camp, and Phillip Ettinger. Directed by: Craig Zobel.


4 of 6 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
Rate the Characters from Smartest to Dumbest AdvanceIstheMan
According to wikipedia, the real manager leaverus
'Becky' Wins Six Million Dollar Settlement bootblack987
This one belongs to the top five most annoying movies ever!!! crdrews
Only in America stokesy1012002
Milgram Experiment DzoniB
Discuss Compliance (2012) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?