MK Ultra (2022) User Reviews

Good performance from the actors, but the story is dull and all over the place

[siderite · 6/10 · 14 October 2022]

I like Anson Mount, as well as Jason Patrick (which, BTW, I didn't recognize until I looked at the cast). The subject is also one that has enormous significance: CIA special programs to experiment with LSD and other substances in order to break the human will and make tools out of people. The acting was good, too, from all of the people involved. The problem was the plot, going from creepy to boring and back again without an actual reason. And if that wasn't confusing enough, it was interlaced with old documentary footage.

In the end, it felt like the movie did not know what it wanted to be: a thriller, a horror, a drama, a documentary. I didn't dislike the film, but I wouldn't recommend it.

1 man in Mk Ultra

[claudews · 6/10 · 8 October 2022]

Overall, the the movie is well done, no arguement there.. But are we talking about MK Ultra? No! We're talking about the story of one man barely involved. We're so far from the real story of MK Utra. And sincerely, I'm not sure where the movie wanted to go.

In my humbie view, the movie is slow, as you would expect, I guess, from a "real" story inspired movie. I would consider that movie as a "dark" movie, not that I would expect otherwise. Really I not sure how to critic. I did get much out of it. I didn't learn anything I didn't already know.

Let's just say we're far from a movie like "Enigma", In my humble view.

Dull execution of an interesting subject

[MadValkyrie · 5/10 · 10 October 2022]

At first, I embraced the dry dialog, noir-esque filming style and inconsistent audio as a style choice in trying to make this film seem like it was made in the era of MK Ultra. But as the movie progressed (or should I say plodded along), I realized that there was little to hold on to. Many of the actors in this film were fantastic but were given very little to work with script-wise. The editing of the film, particularly in the final scenes, seemed very disjointed and not as an artistic choice. The addition of historical footage (documentaries, interviews etc) was great but tended to be stretched too long, making things drag along. While many complain about the film being more about the main doctor than MK Ultra, that is not my issue. It was just a poorly assembled film as a whole, despite having so many great components. For a fascinating subject, this film felt like a cinematic lobotomy. Wanted to like it but I just can't.

Even the Spelling is Wrong!

[lazzag · 1/10 · 13 October 2022]

I knew what I was in for in the opening blurb which included words that do not exist: "experiement" and "realation".

The filmmaker seriously cannot spell but did not bother to have it proofread or spell checked.

I flicked through this film. It was a total waste of time; low to no budget, dreadful acting and even worse directing, writing and cinematography.

Anson Mount is a bonus but he is no reason for anyone to sit through this dross which cannot make up its mind if it is a documentary, drama or docudrama. The MK Ultra experiments are a well documented part of history - why did the filmmaker not focus on a genuine participant instead of a peripheral (and fictional) character.

You can do better than waste your precious time on this. The warning signs are there in the opening text (OMG, it is like the idiots who do not know when to use an apostrophe so they put it in everything including plurals). I would never release a film that has that sort of glaring mistake. It is like the film was put out in a rush.

Mind Numbing...

[Xstal · 3/10 · 7 October 2022]

What would you do, the CIA have approached you, to make some tests on people's minds, to discover and to find, if control can be acquired, of their thoughts and their desires, make them act against their will, to satisfy and to fulfil, the less well-off are your patients, some don't make a lot of sense, but they'll do what they are told, let's see if science can remould.

A far from engaging tale (quite dull in fact) of the abuse dealt out to those less well off in the 1960s by those in authority in order to find out how they might be able to control a person's mind, change their behaviour and make them do things against their will.

Utter Lack of Post Production

[jgjobs-99594 · 4/10 · 7 October 2022]

I like the lead actor that plays the doctor; this was a gimmick and I feel for it.

This is not just low budget. You can do a lot with a short changed budget. Even in the opening; there should not have just been a 1:1 old video playing. There were no effects used; not even a ken burns effect or something. The CIA guy has huge nose hairs coming up from pretending to snort cocaine. This is super obvious against a light colored background. NOBODY looked at this film after it was put in the can. The lighting is terrible in every indoor scene and the shadows are not managed at all.

FIFTEEN MINUTES IN... I had to hit the ejector button. I am not going to waste my time watching a movie that was not worth a second look to the people that made the dang thing.

Grubby, depressing but worth watching

[oscosc-78586 · 7/10 · 10 October 2022]

MK Ultra was a top secret US government program to test mind control techniques on people.

The words secret and test are the key there.

Lots of the MK Ultra program was voluntary (still kind of appalling), but this film focuses on something that always happens when you make things secret and throw money at it. You get abuses by the type of person attracted to acting out their worst fantasies.

Without giving away spoilers, the Dr Strauss (Anson Mount) is genuine in his desire to research whether LSD can help those with mental illness, addictions etc. He struggles to get funding. A benefactor shows up and Strauss slowly begins to realise his mistake.

Thankfully the film relies on showing not telling. It lets you try to work out what's happening. The result is an intense, grubby and depressing look at the darker parts of the MK Ultra story.

One criticism is that the beginning has a scene linking the program to race. The rest of the film is obvious that it wasn't about race. No-one was spared - MK Ultra even preyed on their own CIA agents. The scene was a cheap addition and the film is better than that. Also, the film kind of skips over the role Doctors played in the outright abuses of MK Ultra. The doctor here tries to correct his mistake. The real ones were quite happy to benefit.

Just like many of the worst excesses in human history, doctors (who should know better) involved themselves in the MK Ultra abuses in full knowledge of what was being done.

Should you watch it? Yes. While you're at it... look up the facts of MK Ultra. It's not a conspiracy theory. Lots of conspiracy nonsense was built around it, but the program itself and the abuses that went along with it were very real.

Flop

[quietneeded · 3/10 · 10 October 2022]

Started out promising. But quickly showed no actual plot. Sadly it could have been good ..... the end was so unbelievable. This was just a total loss on where it seemed like the movie was going. I thought you were going to see some crazy studies done, which psychedelic drugs and behavior said they caused. Then next thing you know people are out of the study you don't even know why. You don't get to see what happens to people in the study, weird scenes with the guy and his wife. It's literally all over the place and nowhere at the same time. By the time you get to the end he realized how much time you wasted watching this movie.

Fact: Why is no mentioned of the LSD be dispensed to Children.

[usstatumde · 6/10 · 23 January 2023]

It's a shame there was no mention by Sorrentino. Of the following question. Why did the Provost Dean at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, dispense LSD in furtherance the MK ultra program to children. His own children and children living in the neighborhood in which he was resided.

Some of these children moved on to early deaths, no producing lives, and learning disabilities.

These are serious questions needing to be answered.

If this movie wants to be considered an educationaly informative and entertaining piece then the U. S. citize need to all facts about UM ultra.

What say you?

Preview of references.

a striving...

[ops-52535 · 5/10 · 7 October 2022]

Attempt to qbtain allsorts of authenticity, a drama pseudo documentary styled look at projects done in the name of c.i.a., and psychriatic institutions, famous as well as infamous, dealing with psychedelic compunds to treat mental patients, or to leech information from enemy spies and soforth, using the force of lsd and other caleidoscopic formulaes to turn a mans brain inside out...

the actual issues are real and shouldve been covered so too, but the plot and acts are like a rambling tree of b-quality, and gives you just a minor clue of the severity of the deeds done back then

the task of making a film like this needs a lot of economic foundation to obtain credibility, especially when the audience is history nerds that knows the abc, and others like me the grumpy old man that wants more than just close ups shoots to hide the real world and pinups doing erotic yoga with cia agents that seems pretty skidrunning if you ask me, therefore i will not award this more than a 5, and that you can easily let this slip by.

worth it...

[pikac-74095 · 9/10 · 28 October 2022]

Woah. Thats what it called mind-blowing. I'm knocked. I can't begin to understand the negative responses. Anyone wanting a documentary to learn what the H happened in detail go elsewhere you're too boring for the mind screw of this film. Here you feel it. Watching this film was something special. People in the way it lulls you into its nasty grasp and then sucks the air out of the room. You feel the lack of hope and escape in each scene till that climax. We had to pause for breath then thrown back into this shock hell of MK ULTRA. A film worth experiencing and would have been great to see in theatres. Shame the film was buried in this recent release. Was it the Government?

How to Make a Movie Without Really Trying

[davidabarak · 2/10 · 19 January 2023]

It's easy to make a movie when your script is only half the length of a feature film - fill the finished product with lots of shots of people doing interesting things like driving, smoking, contemplating. Don't forget to include shots of things completely unrelated to the film: a rag on a fence, a wet road...

I have patience, I really do, but filmmakers need to honor the patience true film fans give them, and these filmmakers (like so many other unknowns) have abused that trust.

The cinematography and sound design are really good, but all that is thrown away by a story that just about doesn't exist.

Please, movie watching public, don't waste your time with this one.

Sadistic and boring.

[mr_iceman · 3/10 · 13 January 2023]

Started off good, then sadly dived into a similar turf to canninbal holocaust showing us grim sexual, physical and mental torture.

You'd be better off reading Wikipedia to get the jist of the illegal program of MK Ultra than watch this boring, cult-like movie. The movie jumps around in places from 1 scene to another, then quickly snaps back to another torture type scene.

The psychiatrist appears to be shocked and bewildered the entire movie which is really irksome.

I wouldn't waste 90mins watching this movie, as I mentioned, there are plenty of sources on what MK Ultra achieved and conducted.

rather dull

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 20 January 2023]

In the 60's, the CIA is conducting mind control experiments using LSD. Dr. Ford Strauss (Anson Mount) is recruited by CIA agent Galvin Morgan (Jason Patric) to run experiments at a small Mississippi clinic. Rose (Jaime Ray Newman) is Ford's wife.

The style is faux documentary. It doesn't have much of a story flow. It's basically a lot of individual scenes of Ford's life and his experiments. It's trying for realism. There are a few interesting ideas and scenes. The transgender patient is most interesting. Mostly, it's rather dull until the last act explodes into gun violence. Through that whole section, I am most intrigued by Anson Mount and Jason Patric's similar looks. That's not a good thing. I don't find their struggle that compelling.

Horrible. Simply Horrible.

[arfdawg-1 · 1/10 · 19 November 2022]

This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It's a complete and total bore.

So slow that you will either want to fast foward of go to sleep and wake up when it's over.

The characters are all about talk talk talk and no action. NONE.

And it's not even interesting talk. You won't connect with any of them. So poorly directed and you are completely certain as the movie unfolds that 90% of it is fiction.

So truthfully, if you like movies where there are long takes of people staring our a window for maybe 3 minutes and nothing happens then this is for you.

It sure wasnt for me. I think this is one of the worst movies of 2022.

I stopped watching after 20 minutes or so

[romneymeredith · 1/10 · 26 November 2022]

By the time I stopped watching my brother had already fallen asleep.

This movie was slow with a weird music soundtrack that particularly aggravated me. Every male had thick 1960s glasses like Woody Allen (Anson Mount's were different) and everyone was smoking - that was the most entertaining aspect of the whatever this film was. Since I knew this was only based on true events I knew some aspects and characters would be fictional but after seeing (1) a CIA agent having sex with an apparent prostitute in a bathroom while almost fully dressed, (2) Anson tied up and gagged on his own bed while his wife was giving him oral sex (unsuccessfully) and then (3) the same CIA agent beating a nude man hanging from something in some perverted sado-masochistic act I bailed on the movie. What in the devil does graphic depictions of sexual acts have to do with what we all expected to see, a depiction of what the U. S. government did (and surely still does) to unsuspecting innocent citizens???

After 10 minutes I KNEW the rating over 6 at IMDB was a lie but after seeing all of this within the first 20 minutes or so I knew I had to rate it a 1 star. It is a tribute to how bad this movie was that I could not even finish it which I often will if the movie is cheesy bad in a good way. This was awful and everyone in it looked like they had awakened with a hangover and had been constipated for 4 days.

My advice - this movie was a bad trip, avoid it!

This movie was.... Not good...?

[mmiltonberger · 2/10 · 23 October 2022]

The actors had good performances, but like many are saying, the story is very disjointed and all over the place. The lighting and color is great, but so much of the movie is shot in a medium shot along with odd clunky edits-also, the sound design... yikes. They also never really go into any details about the actual happenings of MK Ultra, the LSD mind control trials (other than giving patients LSD), and the true corruption of it all. It's as if they tried to wrap all of it up and get through every point in the last 15-20 minutes. A lot of things are presented and never explained later on. Like, they said at one point that a certain subject was promising and then literally never went into any more detail of them nor into the relationship between him and the doctor and why that's important. I feel like I just watched 90 minutes of random vignettes instead of a movie. We were really bummed since a good movie on MK Ultra could be awesome since it's such an interesting topic.

Loved it

[mangosteen55 · 8/10 · 13 October 2022]

I must be the only one that had no idea about the MK Ultra program till i actually seen this. The film has a noir, stylistic feel to it which adds another level of realism to it. From science, drugs to the underworld run by the criminal government it had everything you would expect in a cia flick like this. I also can't forget one of the reasons this film caught my attention was because of Jason Patric. He nailed his character and made this film come alive. Great acting as you really get drawn into his character right from the start. In all Mk Ultra is an impressive film that's worth watching. I'll give this a 8.

Unable to Respond

[nogodnomasters · 4/10 · 7 November 2022]

The film is based upon the fact the CIA did LSD experiments on people in the 1960's. This film, while not a documentary, has all the lack of character of a documentary. It centers on Dr. Ford Strauss who works with mental patients in Mississippi. He wants to do LSD experiments but can not get legitimate funding until the CIA comes along. The CIA films his experiments as all of his patients respond differently to the drug which seemed odd. At the same time a brothel in town is also being used for CIA experiments. The film sites some MK Ultra facts and shows us the counterculture in old film reels, but it wasn't part of the movie which turned out to be a waste of time as it was boring and didn't use real characters.

Guide: F-word. Sex. Nudity (Jen Richards)

Mind-numbing, painfully slow and shallow storyline

[tacomama-73119 · 1/10 · 22 January 2023]

If you enjoy watching long stretches of drawn-out nothingness in movies--llike a guy staring at a ringing phone for 40 mind-numbing seconds--then this film is definitely for you. This painfully slow and shallow storyline does NOT uncover any interesting facts or the true story behind the CIA's involvement in the MK-Ultra Experiments. Instead it stretches out an underdeveloped 15- minute plot for two sigh-inducing hours. The film offered no character development, no plot twists, no depth, or actual follow-through. And most importantly, the movie offered no insight beyond the basic premise. There's got to be a more engaging story out there.... but this one is honestly just a regrettable waste of time.

Slow Low Budget True Story

[stevendbeard · 4/10 · 13 October 2022]

I saw MK Ultra, starring Anson Mount-Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Star Trek:Discovery_tv; Jason Patric-Wayward Pines_tv, The Losers; Jaime Ray Newman-The Punisher_tv, Bates Motel_tv and Jen Richards-Better Things_tv, Blindspot_tv.

This is a low budget movie that is based on true events that happened in the 1960's. The C. I. A. Were using drugs to experiment on it's own American citizens-and some non Americans too. Anson plays a psychiatrist that is deceived into working for the C. I. A. By Jason. Of course, Jason doesn't tell Anson all the facts of how Anson's research is being used-that's where the deceiving part comes in. Jaime plays Anson's wife and Jen is one of Anson's patients. LSD is one of the main drugs used in the tests. MK Ultra was the code name of the C. I. A. Operation and the MK stands for Midnight Climax-I guess whoever came up with the initials wasn't a very good speller in school. If you have never heard about this story-I am old enough to remember it-I guess it could be interesting but it is a little slow and only picks up at the very end when they try to put a Hollywood ending on it.

It is rated NR but it contains violence, sexual content-including nudity-and drug use, of course, and has a running time of 1 hour & 38 minutes.

It's not one that I would buy on DVD or even rent. If I was you, I'd wait until it's on tv.

Horrible

[domialenic · 1/10 · 19 October 2022]

What a total horrible piece of crap. 6.7 average score of 4280 on the IMDB rating ? I had to double check this as I can not, absolutely not understand why anyone would have give this pseudo documentary anything over two. It rather deserves a zero rating as it has absolutely no merit whatsoever. No acting, no coherence in the story nothing. It looks like the director probably was also under the influence of some mind altering substance. I rarely would give such a damning feedback, where it not that it was about the illegal and inhumane actions by the US government conducting experiments on their own people. A very important topic, which could have done with a proper documentary film. We all know that the US government conducted and I assume still does all sorts of evil experiments on their own citizens. Whether it was exposing their soldiers to nuclear radiation to see how quick they could be send into nuclear blasts areas or the buses that where supposed to give treatment to people that suffered from Syphilis, but only receiving placebos to see how the disease would develop. And I would more then welcome any director willing to expose to the public what an evil and monstrous government they have and pretend to act in their name. But do so in a professional and informing way. This movie, documentary or whatever you want to call it certainly does nit do that.

Utter nonsense

[paulmillhouse · 2/10 · 4 March 2023]

It's pretty terrible. Starts off as a quasi-documentary, even includes a bunch of real 1960s and 70s news footage which is interesting to see. Slowly devolves into what seems like a total creation of the writer / directors imagination. Don't watch this film thinking you'll get any factual information about this government program. I'm sure none of the events in this film actually happened in the way they were portrayed. Yes there was a program called MK ULTRA. This film does nothing to describe it or further the truths about it. Put simply, this film is pure and utter made up garbage. Waste of time.

Terrible

[mls4182 · 1/10 · 30 May 2023]

What a waste. This was a cheap, poorly made film. Any point it tried to make it any cause it tried to promote was lost.

This film really seems like just an excuse to be sleazy and anti establishment. It is basically an insult to all your sensibilities.

I don't suggest watching unless you plan on dropping acid beforehand. I can't imagine being able to sit through it otherwise.

I am sure there are some true stories out there that are very compelling. That makes this movie even more of an intolerable waste.

I hope they aren't implying this film is about the scientist who jumped to his death in NYC in 1953.

So entertaining

[marktowne82 · 9/10 · 13 October 2022]

This film is written by ex-Intelligence officer Joseph Sorrentino and he did an exceptional job making this. It's a disturbing yet entertaining film and i liked how they mixed in real footage in many parts throughout the film. Lots of A list actors too and the production and editing is superb. Nothing dragged out it and in the end i really thought to myself, wow this government experiment really happened! I'm hoping the director continues to make more films like this, Hollywood needs more cia truth films like MK ultra. What a major trip, if your reading this you need to watch it. Well done to everyone involved.