Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Crwthod A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

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

timothycrugnale Pretty boring. Whole thing feels like a director from Criminal Minds shot it and I don't mean that in a good way. Danes was horrible in this flick. The only gem in here was Ray Wise, excellent acting by him, as always. Don't waste your time, unless your having trouble sleeping.

mgulev Richard Gere really has come a long way since An Officer and A Gentleman and Pretty Woman. His last couple of movies have really shown his acting talent. This movie is no exception.Gere plays an agent checking up on sex-offenders living among the general population. The lead-in to the movie and his first couple of scenes show him to be VERY engaged in his job.A teenager goes missing and Geres character thinks it might be one from his "flock" that has taken her. There is a fine balance between the movies different subplots (checking up on the flock, his imminent "retirement", the new trainee and of course the abduction) and the acting is great all around.The camera-work is another thing, though. Fast clips and shaky camera ... does nothing good for any movie.

SnoopyStyle Erroll Babbage (Richard Gere) works at the Department of Public Safety tirelessly rigorously checking on sex offenders. He is close to retirement and forced to train his young replacement Allison Lowry (Claire Danes). She tries to be sympathetic to Viola Frye (KaDee Strickland) who spins a sob story whereas Erroll takes justice into his own hands. Then 17 years old Harriet Wells turns up missing, and Erroll is given a clue. The cops and everybody else dismisses his suspicion that it's one of his charge.Richard Gere plays a great obsessive dark personality. Claire Danes is a great foil as the slight naive newbie. Together this duo has great chemistry. Hong Kong director Wai-Keung Lau doesn't have quite the dark style for this subject matter. It would have been great with a darker director like David Fincher. The movie doesn't have the needed thrills or tension.

Paul Andrews The Flock starts as Department of Public Safety official Erroll Babbage (Richard Gere) has just eighteen days left until he retires, Erroll's job is to keep track of paroled sex offenders & rapists who he calls his 'flock'. Erroll is introduced to Allison Lowry (Claire Danes) his replacement, it's up to Errol to show Allison in eighteen days what has taken him eighteen years to learn. While scanning the local newspapers Erroll spots that a seventeen year old girl named Harriet Wells (Kristina Sisco) has been abducted, for somewhat random reasons Erroll suspects that one of his 'flock' may be responsible for the abduction & uses his last eighteen days to try & save the life of Harriet before she ends up just another victim...Produced & directed by Wai-kenung Lau under the pseudonym Andrew Lau this crappy serial killer thriller had a turbulent production, after filming Lau was fired by the studio & producers who then made their own cut of the film which was released across Europe & was the one I saw & thus will be basing my comments on. Then Niels Mueller was brought in to direct some uncredited re-shoots & an entirely different cut of the film was put together, the European cut is about ten minutes longer & the two are edited differently with scenes appearing in different order & both version lose & gain footage over the other. Anyway, while I can't really comment on the US version I pretty much hated the European cut, the whole film is an absolute mess from start to finish. The plot is awful, I guess the makers were going for an edgy serial killer thriller like Se7en (1995) or The Silence of the Lambs (1991) with a race against time to track down a killer & save a life or two. The character's are awful, I think we are meant to empathise with Erroll but he comes across as a lifeless shell while Allison just doesn't have the grit needed for such a tough job. The investigation aspect of The Flock is strictly routine, the script feels like a cheap throwaway TV cop drama with no real twists or surprises & little to no dramatic impact as there's lots of talking, self pitying & turmoil but the script forgets to deliver anything gripping or engaging & I really did hate The Flock as a film. The European cut runs over 100 minutes which is far to long for such a crap film, we never see the the victim Harriet before the end so we never feel sorry for her & strangely we only ever see her parents once very briefly so the parental loss angle is also wasted. There are so many problems with The Flock it's just not funny, why did that guy set is Dog on Erroll? Why not just kill the guy? Would pointing a loaded gun at your partners head & threatening to kill her really make her trust you & risk her life & career for you? How did that black guy at the end know where Harriet was? A frustrating nothing sort of ending that is neither here nor there just rounds things off badly & left me totally unsatisfied. If you like great cop serial killer crime films then give The Flock a miss.The most startling part of The Flock is the text that begins the film, it says that there are over half a million registered sex offenders in the US & for every thousand offenders there is only one caseworker that monitors them which is sort of scary when you think about it. The violence & gore are minimal, a few people are beaten up, there are some photos of severed limbs & a couple of mouldy dead bodies but nothing else. Another big difference between the two different versions is that the European one has that really awful machine gun editing, fades, white-outs & strange editing while the US one is far more straight forward apparently & tones down the annoying attempts at style. The whole film has a somewhat desaturated look & the there's not much colour here.The IMDb says that The Flock had a budget of about $35,000,000 which amazes me, where did all the money go? Next to nothing happens. Filmed in New Mexico. I can't believe the cast in this, Richard Gere looks lost, Claie Danes is miscast & is just an observer 90% of the time while pop star Avril Lavign hasn't been in a film since this was says it all.The Flock is a terrible serial killer thriller with no twists or surprises & the level of investigation is as basic as they come, a really unsatisfying, annoyingly made mess of a film. I am not sure if the US version is any better but it sure can't be any worse, can it?