The film's premise is loosely based on the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, which took 24 undergraduate students and placed them in a mock prison setting. Some students were randomly chosen to play guards, while the rest were cast as prisoners. The focus of the study was to see the psychological effects of becoming either a prisoner or prison guard. After six days, the experiment was stopped after those chosen to play guards began to subject prisoners to, as researchers put it, "genuine sadistic tendencies" towards prisoners (later referred to as "The Lucifer Effect").
The Stanford Prison Experiment has been the focus of numerous books and films, and takes center stage - at least in spirit - with The Experiment. Travis (Adrien Brody) meets the girl of his dreams only to find out she's moving to India. Out of work, and out of money, Travis answers a newspaper ad asking for test subjects for a 14-day experiment. The money is enough to get Travis to India and he happily applies.
Once at the prison, Travis meets Michael Barris (Forest Whitaker). Travis is selected as a prisoner, while Michael is chosen as a guard. Those chosen as guards are given a set of rules to follow, while prisoners are told they will lose their civil rights for the remainder of the experiment.
Here's where The Experiment goes wrong. The element that made the Stanford experiment so interesting was the psychology behind it all. Civilized men were given power and abused it. The Experiment brushes on the concept, but is shy about fully exploring the concept.
Considering the film features two Oscar winners as its principal cast members, you would at least expect decent performances. Neither Brody nor Whitaker take to their roles and manage to find some emotional string to pull, but like the rest of the film, just when they're getting close to the center, they stop pulling.
However, it's not completely their fault. The characters, and most of the plot for that matter, are so simple and paint-by-numbers, that it's hard to make anything out of nothing. Everyone is a one-note horn in a concerto requiring multiple notes. Plot and character beats are predicable to the point you could probably figure out the end just by reading this write-up.
The Experiment comes up as lacking in both presentation and extras. The picture and sound quality are okay, but there's nothing outstanding or remarkable about either. Extras are nonexistent.
Without the psychology behind the experiment at the forefront, The Experiment is simply a plot with no story. There's nothing here to make you really think about what is going on, removing the suspense and second-guessing the film desperately needs.
