Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

brando647 I have loved psychology since high school and often wish I had pursued a career in the field, but I didn't so I have to get my fix elsewhere. We were lucky to have received two movies focused on the subject of famous psychological experiments last year (EXPERIMENTER and THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT) and, while I was more interested in a dramatization of the Stanford experiment, my local stores only carried the other. EXPERIMENTER is a strange little docudrama that details the work of Stanley Milgram (Peter Sarsgaard), most prominently his experiment on obedience. For those unfamiliar, the subject of the experiment would act as the "teacher" and ask a series of memory questions to the "student". Interacting in separate rooms via a one-way intercom, the teacher would be commanded to shock the student with increasing voltage for every wrong answer until the student (a member of Milgram's team) is heard grunting in pain, demanding the experiment be halted, and eventually goes silent. Milgram's goal was to see how many people would continue the experiment knowing they are causing pain to an innocent subject and how far people would allow the voltage to climb before refusing to continue. The results of his experiment were considered shocking and the whole event remains controversial; EXPERIMENTER delves into Milgram's views on the importance of the results, the question of whether his experiment was ethically sound, and how this one experiment continued to resonate throughout his career until his eventual death late in 1984.EXPERIMENTER is a film for a niche audience and I can see most people either bored or put off by director Michael Almereyda's creative choices. Psychology is a hard topic to make too exciting. Interesting, sure, but not exciting. The most drama you find in the film comes from the negative reactions to Milgram's experiment. We're treated to a trio of women being given the chance to confront Milgram after the fact where they can voice the psychological concerns of participants deceived into thinking they are harming another human being, and we see Milgram lose out on tenure at Harvard because the professional world didn't respond much better to what his experiment said on human nature. For me, all that was the interesting stuff. About halfway through the movie, we shift gears to focus on some of Milgram's other, less controversial experiments. It's all mildly interesting and serves to show that Milgram wasn't completely about exposing mankind's less popular features but I was hoping we'd get more drama from the obedience experiment and the aftermath. I suppose there might not have been enough material for such interesting dramatic piece and maybe we got a glimpse at the worst of it. We did get a fun visit with Milgram to the set of the TV movie "The Tenth Level" where William Shatner (Kellan Lutz) and Ossie Davis (Dennis Haysbert) are recreating the experiment in true '70s cheese fashion. It's all somewhat intriguing but the movie does lose a lot of steam.Apparently some elements of Almereyda's film were met with laughter when touring the festival circuit. You see, he's incorporated some weird visual elements that feel completely out of place. It all starts when we see Milgram's first monologue to the audience as he walks down the hall outside his experiment room, and an elephant comes around the corner and shambles up behind him. I assume it's some "elephant in the room" visual metaphor but I honestly didn't know what it was meant to tell me. It seemed to me that the character of Milgram was completely frank with the audience (and everyone in the film) and that there weren't any issues left unaddressed. Then we have bizarre uses of background projection (not just for driving scenes…an entire afternoon tea scene is set in front of a weird background projection) and a distractingly bad false beard Milgram acquires when we reach the late 70's or so. Why go weird? Why not play this as a straight drama? It started feeling like we were watching an odd stage play. A stage play with an admirable cast though. Sarsgaard does a fine job as MIlgram and we've got Winona Ryder as his wife Sasha. Comedian Jim Gaffigan has a minor role as the "student" in Milgram's team and his subjects have a steady stream of cool cameos including John Leguizamo and Anton Yelchin. As inexplicably strange as the movie is and despite the lull in the middle, EXPERIMENTER has enough positive notes to make it well worth a view for anyone interested in the subject matter.

room102 The movie tells the story of the (in)famous Milgram's experiment, a fascinating study of human behavior and how easy it is to influence people to do what you want - even horrible things - when you're in a position they perceive as commanding (which may help explain the behavior of the Nazis in WWII).It's a pretty accurate recreation of the experiment and its outcome, but films like this (e.g.: The numerous films made about the Stanford prison experiment) raise the question: why watch a recreation when you can watch the REAL thing on YouTube?For some odd reason the director chooses, at random occasions, to break the 4th wall or use obvious old B&W rear-screen shots at random places. Very strange decision that throws you out of the movie and seems totally out of place.The first half of the movie is OK, but then it loses some of the focus.Better watch the footage from the actual experiment if you haven't seen it yet.

Reno Rangan A movie about the experiments on the human behaviour and for us, there's nothing in it but to study those characters along. This is more a documentary than the cheerful characters and the story with a twist. So forget it if you are looking for an entertainment film.Based on the true story of an American social psychologist Stanley Milgram. The film narrates the story of his controversial experiments and personal life that takes us back to the 60s. Not all the discoveries were accepted in its first revelation. Sometimes it takes time to realise its benefits like perhaps this one.The film was boring because it was a drama about an important turning point in the human psychology. So all the major parts of the story were just talking and it never required physical stretch from its characters like running and chasing around. If you're interested in psychology and its related stuffs, then you might like it.Besides, the romance was a small part of what the film was focused on as its title mentioned. It does not mean I dislike it for not enjoying. In fact, I would have rated it better only if it was a documentary film. But still I'm happy with the product. Overall a decent film with the decent performances.6/10

Tom Dooley Peter Sarsgaard ('Black Mass and 'The Killing')stars as Professor Stanley Milgram who conducted a range of experiments as a social psychologist. His most famous/notorious were his 'obedience tests'. He conducted these using volunteers who were told to electrocute a stranger if they answered any pre set question wrong in a controlled environment. The doses increased as the test progressed. His wife is played by the wonderful Winona Ryder.His results caused him both fame and derision and he is still used and cited widely today. The film follows the life of Milgram, his family and marriage and some of his personal acquaintances. Sarsgaard, as ever, is excellent and convincing but there are some filmatic techniques that were a bit odd. There is deliberate use of fake backgrounds - as if it were a play – in some of the scenes. There is also the use of an Indian elephant for two corridor scenes which is left totally unreferenced!?This could be the elephant in the room has already escaped and is amongst us? I do not know but it is a great centre piece to get you thinking. And that is what this film is really about – challenging and questioning our ideas and ideals about who we are and how we would act if confronted with the self same situations. He called it the 'agentic state' whereby we say 'we were just following orders', or 'it's the law' or worse 'I was told to do it'. I find this sort of discussion fascinating and there is much more here in this film about Milgram's work. One I really enjoyed and feel easy to recommend even with the elephant.