The Flock (2007)

Thanks for the memories!

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Don't Believe the Hype

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

I thought this movie deserved way more stars then it has been given. I can see why people want to compare it with Se7en or Silence of the lambs because of the sex offenders and sadistic tendencies of the criminals. Well it's the same kind of story but I would not compare it with the other masterpieces that are way better then this one. This movie has just its own story and I enjoyed it from the beginning till the end. Richard Gere gave a solid performance as the sex offender hunter. It's just a nice entertaining movie and honestly I don't get why people would be disappointed to watch this movie. There are way worse movies then this one.

Despite that this should be by now ordinary to me, I continually become amazed when the mainstream American movie industry panders with amazingly clinging loyalty to the the American public their tendency to fanaticize and obsess over the obscene. To translate...When discussing the grotesque and the macabre, abuse, torture and destruction of human life, we become most fascinated when such things are done in a bizarre fashion. Of course, it only profits to connect the dots of this fascination to the fetishists. I can't specify enough not only how incorrect, but how harmful this is.I understand how disgusting the American public must find the idea of S/M, BDSM, and Fetishism. That being said, it is blissfully unaware of the simple difference between people who consensually engage in such acts and those individuals that enjoy abusing victims without any permission to do so. It sounds so simple, yet is so essential - at every moment in the movie the berated and obsessed yet righteous agent "uncovers" how his hapless clients like to abuse and sometimes kill women. The fetishists are intermingled with men who mutilate, rape, and kill women. This is beyond cheap - this is discrimination.There is a large difference between a woman who wants to be bound and whipped and a man who is doing this to her, and a man who likes to do this to women who don't want it. Sadism is a term misused - there is a DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ODD SEXUAL ACTS AND ABUSIVE CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR. This movie is an insult to the first amendment rights of every American citizen. That being said, this movie breeds ignorance of this. People who engage in S/M are not child molesters and rapists. Sometimes molesters and rapists may like some of the S/M pornographic material. However, there are many individuals who engage in S/M, and they have no prior abuse records, no troubled childhoods, and have no intention to harm anyone who doesn't specifically request and agree to it. Yes, masochists find sadists, indeed, need sadists, as the other half of their happy perverse existence. Neither breaks the law. Particularly annoying was when the agent had a consensual couple in public this time, leaving it very difficult for him to go on his violent paranoid rant, so he chose to annoy and harass them instead, who basically told him to go and sit on it. So, basically, according to this movie, any abnormal sexual behavior will be persecuted by the state. What I'd like to know is, what is the point of this people's jobs? And what are they saying about our rights?

The Flock is another one of those films you see sitting on the shelf at your local video store and you are perplexed because it has big stars in it, but you've never heard of it before. I call these Alzheimers Films because they make you wonder why you don't remember hearing anything about them. Unlike most of its brethren, The Flock is fairly good, even if it swerves a bit too much out of realism and into melodrama. The film starts out strongly enough, though, that you're willing to forgive the plot holes that crop up in its second half.Erroll Babbage (Richard Gere) works for the New Mexico Department of Public Safety. His job is to keep track of a list of registered sex offenders, which he refers to as his "flock", and Erroll is almost as obsessive about that as the rapists and child molesters are about their deviant desires. Erroll is constantly circling stories of abduction and sexual violence in the newspaper and checking to see if one of his "flock" is responsible. He harasses his assigned offenders and isn't above beating the crap out of them if he feels they're getting out of line.Largely because of his frightening intensity and nearly maniacal focus, Erroll is being forcible retired. With a month left of the job, he's assigned to train a new sex offender supervisor named Alison Lowry (Claire Danes). She seems almost comically unprepared for the job compared to the unrelenting Erroll and is hesitant to accept what Erroll has to teach her about sex offenders, who they are and what they're capable of. But when a young woman disappears and Erroll finds a taunting clue that one of his "flock" might be responsible, these two complete opposites must rely on each other as they plunge into the darkness of exploitation, violation and murder to save the missing girl and as much of their own humanity as they can.The best thing about this film is the character of Erroll Babbage, both the magnetic performance of Richard Gere and the way the character is used to examine the corrosive nature of violent sexual predation. Erroll isn't a cop. He's a civil servant who's been called upon to act as an ever vigilant sentinel against people who can only achieve satisfaction through the misuse, abuse and even butchery of others. Erroll takes that responsibility so seriously it nearly destroys him as a functional human being, yet even more disturbing than that is the idea other people with this job don't take it as seriously. How many end up suffering at the hands of a sex offender because of the 9-to-5, "it's just a job" attitude of people like Alison Lowry? The Flock suggests that not only can sex offenders not be safely reintegrated into society, but that the act of corralling and controlling them is too corrupting to those who try to do it.The rest of the movie isn't quite a strong as its main character, however. The second half gets much more theatrical, becoming a depraved version of the standard "race to find the missing girl" story. There are also some moments when it gets really hard to believe and/or accept that Erroll and Alison don't call in the real cops to handle the situation and there's one scene where the story needs to get from point A to point B and the writers apparently didn't know how to do it, so they just wrote something really stupid to get the job done. And while Claire Danes does a nice job, her role is woefully undeveloped.It's not perfect, but The Flock is good enough to make you wonder why it never got a chance to play in theaters. It's certainly better than a lot of the crap that does.

Gere and Danes star as 2 workers for the department of public safety who keep track of released sex offenders. Gere, who plays Babbage, refers to them as his flock. Gere is an over obsessed vigilante whom is on his way out. He is training, new comer Allison, to take over his job. Gere sees his flock as very sick, disturbed puppies. He asks them questions that are not on the list, and tries to act like the police and solve crimes. He keeps getting warned for this behavior, hence the reason he is being replaced. During his final few days on the job, a young girl goes missing, and Babbage is sure it is one of his flock whom has gone astray. Him and Allison narrow a list down and discover some of the offenders have gone AWOL. So, he decides that he needs to track the missing girl down rather than help the police. That part is a little far fetched.There is some sick, twisted stuff shown in this film. Like when Babbage and Allison go to this building where a bunch of sick people do disturbing things to each other. Also, there are the people who kidnapped the girl. At the end of the film, we see what sick freaks they are. However, I wouldn't call this movie excessive because not really much is shown on film.FINAL VERDICT: If you like thrillers and films about serial killers and cops chasing killers, then you will like this.