It’s taken an unseemly number of executive producers — ten to be exact — to secure the financing (budget: $35 million) required to bring you a film with a former movie star, and still marquee name, Richard Gere, that you’ve never heard of. Not knowing of a movie by the time it shows up on DVD (in this case, six months) doesn’t necessarily preclude it from being good or bad — or in this case, deadened.
Gere is Erroll Babbage, an 18-year-veteran Department of Public Safety officer in an unnamed city who tracks the movements of sex offenders on his case-load registry. But these aren’t your Grandma’s sexual predators. These guys and gals are violent, depraved, and fatalistic. They’ve gone post-modern in satisfying their insatiable cravings with the use of asphyxiation, saws, and fan clubs. They’re mechanically inclined, and, even worse, organized.
For the wearied Babbage, there seems to be a light at the end of this dank tunnel; not so for the viewer. The silver-headed old hand has only 18 days left on his suffocating job. Problem is, he isn’t keen about leaving — his boss Stiles (Ray Wise) calls it a retirement, but truth is that Babbage is being let go. An even bigger problem is one that the movie never explains: why?
With his time winding down, the loose cannon Babbage has to train his replacement — city government allowing terminated employees to train their replacements — Allison Lowry (Claire Danes). As Babbage and Lowry go about checking up on his “registrants,” a young girl is abducted. The impulsive pro suspects one of his offending flock are involved.
Plot wheels lazily in motion — but by no means in Gere — the so-called public servants make their way from one sexual offender haven and hideout to another. Each locale is like an ever-challenging series of amusement park roller coaster rides that makes the patrons’ stomachs (read: movie viewers) turn more and more. And more.
With the 58-year-old Gere in the operator's seat, it’s obvious we’re a long way from the Oscar-buzzed caliber of Chicago, and all that jazz. So much so you can’t help but wonder whose path Mr. Gere might have crossed to appear in this mindlessly underdeveloped attempt at what appears to be mainstreaming torture-porn. Director Andrew Lau’s (Hong-Kong's Infernal Affairs, remade as The Departed) The Flock wallows in the very mire of human perversion that it sluggishly tries to convince us its rising above. The irony being that its tenuous existence perpetuates artistic perversion, rather than condemning its more evil sexual cousin.
Article comments
1 - miki
excellent review of a very creepy movie. the movie was filmed in Albuquerque New Mexico.
I wouldn't recommend it.
2 - Jen
I strongly agree with you, "The Flock wallows in the very mire of human perversion that it sluggishly tries to convince us its rising above. The irony being that its tenuous existence perpetuates artistic perversion." I watched 30 minutes of this movie and felt like I was going to vomit. What were they thinking?!?!?
3 - Ken
"The Flock" is a disturbing film on several levels, but it is not a horror movie, or a sick flick that panders to the perverse.
This film is a cautionary tale that is necessary because regular people cannot fathom what mentally ill, sadistic perverts can perpetrate upon the innocent.
The previous reviewers are approaching this work as a pure entertainment, instead of as a useful tool to warn those unsuspecting and unwary folk who would be mutilated and slain by those few but very dangerous sadists who cannot control themselves.
I am not a pervert or sicko, but I am well-read, a bit "long in the tooth," and have an unusual amount of experience gained from surviving in a large metropolitan center.
"The Flock" is a good if serious diversion, not for the squeamish, but well-made and worth the hard lessons it has to impart.
Richard Gere and Clair Danes give excellent performances that will be unappreciated by the luckily innocent among us, who, ironically are the very people who would be wise to heed this minatory and redeeming work.
Peace, and Read Good Books (and periodicals like The Nation magazine/ thenation.com)
:)
4 - DaddyWarbucks
Heed Mr. Boram's review and avoid this stinker.
5 - Cathy
disturbing movie on the subject manner of child molestation, abduction, perverseness. The human ability to torture others is beyond me. Good acting. I"m interested in the book. But scared to read it...
6 - Thomas Stump
This is not enlightenment as Ken portends. You do not need to live through some ones daughter, sexual torture and murder to know that there are very sick bad people out there; such movies desensitize and potentially change (not in a good way) the sort of people whom seek them out. The original reviewer IS spot on; the draw here is only for critics who believe the rare and vile qualifies… and possibly the fans of snuff.