This egregious sustentation is found foremost in the person of the default protagonist, Babbage. He’s a self-appointed enforcer of justice, a gate-keeping vigilante to be sure, as bad, or worse, than the malefactors he’s charged with keeping tabs on. Babbage breaks into residences to perform illegal searches, openly carries a gun against Department policy, and — in conduct that would make "Dirty" Harry Callahan wince in disapproval — by night leads a secret life in which he dons a ski mask and violently attacks miscreants based on their potential to commit future crimes (“We’re fortune tellers”). This unchecked conduct ridiculously culminates with Babbage and Lowry bursting into a sex offenders meeting firing his revolver into floor and walls, demanding at point-blank range the whereabouts of the abducted girl. Your unnamed city’s municipal tax dollars at work.
As preposterous as all this sounds, Gere breezes through the garbage - human and otherwise - with a begrudging Teflon deftness. This despite the fact that we know nothing of Babbage’s personal life. Wife, kids, friends, parents, not so much as a neighbor - dead or living, current or former - are present, or accounted for. Gere either believes in this material more than he has any right to, or he’s even more skilled an actor than we knew. Either way, his unabashedness belies the dispirited material. The gaping script holes don’t lend themselves to understanding Babbage’s motivations, garner the slightest iota of sympathy for him, or make you wonder why you’ve never heard of The Flock.
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.