Compliance is a thriller film that was released on January 21, 2012, at Sundance and on August 17, 2012. The film is based on an actual strip search phone call con that took place in Mount Washington, Kentucky in 2004. Over 70 such affairs were noted in the U.S. before the culprit, David Richard Stewart was arrested in 2004. All such scams ceased after the arrest of Stewart.
The movie received generally positive reviews and Ann Dowd’s performance as Sandra Frum (the manipulated restaurant manager) was met with critical praise and she won the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Netflix recently released a miniseries that is inspired by the same incident. It is titled Don’t Pick Up the Phone and it made its debut on December 14, 2022. It is about the same strip-search case that happened at a McDonald’s in Mount Washington, Kentucky, that was started by a caller dubbed as a police officer.
The plot revealed that the caller called as many as 100 fast-food restaurants over 12 years and misled managers into strip-searched immature employees because they had embezzled or perpetrated other offenses.
The movie was written by Craig Zobel and starred Dreama Walker, Ann Dowd, Bill Camp, and Pat Healy in lead roles. Unfortunately, the movie is available on Netflix. To enjoy the thriller, viewers need to go to Amazon Prime Video. If you wish to look in the same category on Netflix, make sure to stream Extremely Wicked, The Good Nurse, and more.
