Netflix Review of the Week: Compliance

As fans of Breaking Bad know, a fast-food chicken restaurant can be a haven for debauchery. The employees at Chickwich, the fictional chicken shack in the frustrating and fascinating Compliance, aren't killing Mexican drug cartels or slinging blue meth, but they seem to have taken a couple puffs from the pipe of idiocy.

It's important to note that Compliance is based on a true story. Frankly, the movie just wouldn't be the least bit believable were it not.The manager of Chickwich, played to perfection by Ann Dowd, receives a phone call informing her that one of her employees, an attractive young woman, has committed theft in the restaurant. The caller claims to be a police officer, but it quickly becomes evident that either this policeman is either sickeningly fond of eschewing standard protocol, or it's some sort of prank. While the answer becomes increasingly obvious to the viewer, the Chickwich employees never waver in their compliance (yes, I realize I used the movie title here) with the instructions of this caller.

The story is essentially a modern-day Milgram Experiment. How far will people go when being told what to do by an authority figure? Why do they do it? Is it because they feel they aren't responsible for their actions if they are being given orders? Is it a deeply ingrained respect or fear of authority? Group think? Are they just freaking idiots?

Many viewers of Compliance will chalk this up to it just being a case of a few moronic small-town fast food workers being duped. While I'll cop to being floored at their lack of queries as well, this behavior is a sociological phenomenon that even those of us who scoff at the characters in the movie should admit we may also be susceptible to, albeit not to the extremes on display in the film.

How many people with far more impressive pedigrees than I have been more than willing to accept our own government at its word when it tells us that Iraq must be invaded because of their weapons of mass destruction? How many people are more than happy to have many of their civil liberties infringed upon because they're told it might prevent a terrorist attack? As the gap between the rich and everyone else continues to widen, how many people are content to lie down and accept whatever scraps they are given by their employers? Most importantly, why am I asking so many questions in a movie review?

The fact is, most all of us are in fact compliant with authority figures, at least to some degree. While that isn't always necessarily a bad thing, Compliance reminds us that the old saying "Question Authority," still has a place in society.