Compliance: How far would you go?

Writer-director Craig Zobel (Great World of Sound) based Compliance on actual events that occurred at a Mt. Washington, Kentucky McDonald’s in 2004 after a man pretending to be a police officer called the store and said he had evidence suggesting an employee had stolen something from a customer. Zobel appropriately approaches the film as if it is a documentary, and the movie begins at the start of a routine workday at a fictional fast food joint called “ChickWich.”

At first, it’s business as usual. The condiment tray needs to be cleaned, and an employee has to be reprimanded for using profanity. But when Sandra (Ann Dowd), the manager, gets a call from the police about a theft committed by a young blonde woman who works at the store, she assumes the officer is talking about Becky (Dreama Walker). The cop has Sandra put Becky on the line, and he begins to grill her, asserting that he has surveillance video that proves the allegation of theft. He talks Sandra into holding Becky hostage and then strip-searching her. Things get even more complicated when Sandra has her boyfriend Van (Bill Camp) keep an eye on Becky so that she can manage the store. A bit of a simpleton, he reluctantly agrees to make Becky do things that are highly inappropriate. The cop even talks Becky into going along with it all by telling her the procedure is simply police business.

A psychological thriller that ups the ante as it progresses, Compliance makes you wonder why people behave the way the do. Because the employees so willingly go along with what is clearly a ruse, the film is effectively creep. Dowd is terrific as the eager-to-please manager and Van gives a solid performance as her idiot boyfriend.