BRAINWASH
Fascinating and plausible (kind of, I don't know)
Before the credits, we're informed that this movie is based on a true story, and that "all of the following events have actually taken place." Wow, that's quite a claim. Very soon, it becomes very believable indeed.
One of those big, heartless corporations sends nine of their most promising up-and-coming executives and their wives off to a remote locale to undergo EDT, Executive Development Training. None of them know just what that involves, except that a whole lot of bigwigs in that corporation have undergone it and they've all come a long way since. So they plonk down their three grand, sign the waiver, and walk right on in to a training program that's at once ghastly and yet not so horrible that we can't imagine this really happening.
First, the men and their wives are separated and put in their two separate groups. Then, in true identity-suppressing style, they're stripped of personal affects - watches, rings, wallets. And then the psychological sodomy begins! Humiliation, torture (physical and emotional), overexertion, undernourishment, sleep deprivation - it's like summer camp all over again. Sure, nobody's getting their limbs cut off, but it's still pretty unsettling to watch. And, as you might imagine, after each person goes into The Pit and has their cathartic confrontation with what ails them, they weep with joy and those left with doubts find themselves with fewer allies.
This is not a perfect movie. If there's a point to the staff being white, the help being black, and the execs being almost all married white males (there's one married black male), I don't see it. (Hollywood usually has a way of ignoring this even when it's a reflection of societal reality - when they don't ignore it, they usually give a reason) And while the EDT is repeatedly mentioned as being a tool to make leaders out of these people, it looks to me like they're being trained in TAKING orders, not giving them. And even though this does come across as plausible, it still also often comes across as not entirely likely, since this program would pretty much have to have a 100% success rate in order to avoid being sued all to hell.
But it's always interesting, walking a fine line between unsettling and fun, and has an ending that provokes thought in more ways than is immediately apparent. Also known as Mystique, Circle of Power, and The Naked Weekend. Where else are you going to see Leo Rossi with a strap-on dildo, shouting out "I love my dink! I love my dink!"?