If you can’t tell by the profuse, thick hair on almost every actor, this movie takes place in 1971. A Stanford University psychologist (Billy Crudup) hired 24 student volunteers to play prisoners and guards in a simulated jail experiment. This fact-based story gets darker, as the roles they play get more intense. The cast of young up-and-comers does a good job, but things get too intense and stay that way. Even if the dialogue is taken from actual transcripts, the film’s persistent seriousness becomes a dull dark throb, instead of building into any kind of emotional payoff. It’s a fascinating study, but I remember 2010’s The Experiment tackled it better. (Criterion Cinema only)

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