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Powerful

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This is one of those movies that must be included on the list of "potential movies that you have a total dislike just by watching the first five minutes". And I watched the whole thing! The plot could have be interesting but it was almost a rip-off of "The Pledge" where you have a disturbed police officer fighting his own demons to fulfill a promise of catching a rapist of a child. But many things in "The Flock" were over used, over played, laughable and pathetic just to name a few adjectives. Richard Gere is a federal agent in constant vigilance of paroled sex offenders and he's on the trail of a missing girl probably kidnapped by a known suspect of his list. He's been forced to get a retirement because of his bad behavior and in his last case he must train a female young officer to take his place (played by Claire Danes). To make things hard to his partner he's a difficult guy to be with, he doesn't know how to sustain a conversation, and he's always taking care of the case, barely talks about his private life (if he has one except that he beats all the sex offenders he knows).Why this movie didn't worked well? There was nothing thrilling about it, nothing shocking or even interesting to see. There's a statement in the beginning of the film quoting the numbers of cases in U.S. about how many women are sexually assaulted in matters of minutes and it seems to me (at that point) that the movie would follow a strong denounce on that, a warning sign to representants of governments about what's happening or a complain about the lack of efficient police services or something similar. It turns out to be a road to nowhere with awkward situations such as when Gere's character loses his mind to the point of beating up a guy in a restaurant just because he was kissing passionately his own girlfriend. That happened after Claire Danes told him about many clues of the case they were working. Most laughable moment ever in the film. Gere is quite alright in the film, but Claire Danes once again added nothing to her filmography and to the part she was playing. Weird and crying faces were just to silly to show all her skills of playing a good agent with a traumatic past (Clarice Starling's syndrome appears here again). Worst than her performance was the editing and the photography. Remember when I said about the first bad minutes of this film? It's all because of the crazy editing with some annoying stylistic thriller rhythm; and the terrible cinematography with some pitiful effects trying to create an atmosphere of disturbing things, too many unnecessary cuts and voice overs, everything out of order.Everything here is repetitive, boring and you're gonna fall asleep towards the ending. I don't recommend! 3/10

I finally caught "The Flock" on HBO. A taping at 4:20 am while I was asleep, true, but it's better watched at that hour, methinks. It was apparently only released to theaters in Japan and Turkey, from all reports, but North Americans really didn't miss much.It's professionally produced, pairs Claire Danes memorably with Richard Gere, and makes their interplay (standard retiring-burnout-and-protégé) entirely believable in most ways.The gore and corpses aren't beyond those in many modern horror movies, though the camera often lingers more than it should. The fetishes (and worse) of Gere's monitored ex-cons shouldn't shock anyone who's ever been in a triple-X shop.Danes's acting is superb, especially in pursuing an abductor's trail (standard police-procedural, though by non-cops) with Gere's brooding and effective Errol. What blew a hole in this, though, is that she was miscast in the first place.Even though one of Gere's well-worn "flock" is female, nearly all are intimidating men, and the role her character Allison is training to take up calls for more heft. Both physically and professionally.I didn't believe for one minute that Allison chose such a grueling job out of anything more than economic need, certainly not from any more personal calling. No hints are made as to her motivation, nor is anything mentioned of her personal life, beyond nosy behavior and a clumsy allusion by compulsive background-checker Errol.It's a miscasting on a par with what was done with Danes in "The Mod Squad," but unlike that idiocy of a plot-mangled remake, this gives Danes a quite strong setup — and much gore and many sad fetishes — to play against. If you accept that someone of her perception and refinement would ever take that job in the first place, that is.Turn to it on cable, but I wouldn't take the effort to even go to the video store or put it in a Netflix queue. It's worth one viewing.(Most of this review originally appeared on the IMDb board for Claire Danes, followed by considerable discussion.)

I watched the movie "The Flock" because of the casting of Gere and Danes and because the story synopsis sounded interesting. This was one of the WORST movies I've seen in a long while (and I've seen some turkeys.) I've never posted online before but this movie was so awful I had to do so. I suppose the problems begin begin with the script which was so amateurish it's unbelievable. The story makes zero sense and the dialogue is so trite it's nauseating. Poor Gere, he deserves so much better. As for the Gere/Danes on screen matchup, because of the horrible writing, one doesn't believe either character for a single minute. I'll bet Gere wishes he could buy back the negative, were such a thing possible. It's a shame to see talent wasted so badly, not to mention I wish I could get my 2 hours back. (I know what you're thinking. How do I really feel?)

So there you are, in a car, driving after a guy who is running down a back-street and who has just been doing nasty things to a girl who was tied up by her wrists to a wall. You really, really, want to catch this guy 'cause he's a mean bugger. So you're driving and he's running, and as you get close to him he has the cheek to pick up a rubbish bin - you know, one of the small metal "trash cans' that you see in every back-street.So when this desperado throws the trash can at your car, what do you do? I'll tell you what I would do. I'd keep going straight and run the bugger down! But what does Richard Gere do? He's turns sharp left and crashes into a pile of rubbish, gets out of his car and lets the guy get away.Who the hell wrote that piece of this pathetic script? Too unbelievable. I guess that's why I've never heard of this film.Please try to choose better scripts, Mr Gere. You're a great actor - you just need to be more picky.