The Experiment
Review: I just spent the evening watching a movie and the remake of that same movie consecutively. I started off with the German movie Das Experiment from 2001 and ended with the American remake The Experiment from 2010. The movies are based on Mario Giordano's novel Black Box which is inspired by the events of the Stanford prison experiment that took place in 1971. The premise is that a group of men are chosen to be part of an experiment. They will take roles as guard and prisoners at a makeshift prison for 2 weeks. They will then by observed 24 hours a day in this psychological study. As you might guess, it all quickly spirals out of control. So, how were they? Well, both had it's points. Das Experiment was overall a better movie. We got more of the psychological breakdown there and it was way more heartfelt. The Experiment on the other hand skipped a lot of the deadweight that the German movie had. In both movies I felt they could have been better if they didn't have that uninteresting and unnecessary sidestory about the loveaffair. The interesting difference is that in Das Experiment you get a real lack of compassion for the main character Tarek. Highly selfish and self-absorbed. That doesn't happen in the American version. There on the other hand you get Forest Whitaker over-acting to the extreme. Not a pretty sight. If you're only going to watch one of the movies, watch Das Experiment.
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