The Milgram obedience experiments are justly famous in the field of psychology, and an interesting movie could undoubtedly have been made about them, but this is not it.

Peter Sarsgaard sleepwalks thru the Milgram role with almost no affect, and Winona Ryder is wasted as his devoted wife. Writer/Director Michael Almereyda seems more interested in cutesy cinematic tricks (like constantly breaking the 4th wall) than in telling a coherent story, and the viewer is often left wondering "Who is this guy?" and "What just happened?". I DID learn that Milgram was the researcher behind the original "6 degrees of separation" experiments as well, and it would've been interesting to spend a little more time on that story line instead of boring living- room conversations about academic tenure and publishing.

I really can not describe the whole film as I fell asleep and lack the motivation to watch the part I missed. The problem with the film is it is neither a good documentary nor a good film, if it wishes to be an interesting film it needs to inject some pace or drama. The central character breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the audience, this increases as the film progresses to the point were it is nearly pure narration, the fake backgrounds simply break your involvement with the film. It is a shame as it covers so really interesting points as how far will people go if told to do so by authority, it opens up the debate on how could people conduct the atrocities in concentration camps? did the conductor of the experiment abuse the participates? the more I think about it this would have made a better documentary.

First off, Dr. Milgram's work is a great subject for a film and left the door open for a million ways for this story to be told. The positive side: It's a well-cast rendition which covers the basic points in the man's life. For someone who has never read about his work, I think it's a great introduction.

The performances are not bad, but I think as a result of a weak script, the action plays out in a very dry and unemotional way. Stylistic decisions (such as direct address of the audience by the title character in almost every scene) make it very hard to take this film seriously or to have any real response. Many moments in the film seem to be reenactments done as snippets of a bad documentary on Milgram, where others hit right on the dot.

All in all they tried to cover too much material for one film and should have found something more specific to focus on. They style cinematography, direct address of camera, and moments of green-screened action on black and white backgrounds, make the film very hard to suspend disbelief. It was nice to see someone attempt a style outside the Hollywood formula, but sadly this one didn't choose the right methods of experimentation.