Into the Abyss 2011

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: It provides intimate glimpses of people usually seen, and then only briefly, as faces on a post-office wall or numbers in a cemetery. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: The movie's an "In Cold Blood'' with a patient, persistent German interlocutor instead of Truman Capote turning cartwheels in prose. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: The paradox of this film is that it is both unremittingly bleak and rigorously humane. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Into the Abyss is too self-admiring of its own loose ends to come to the indictment that would put it in the company of The Thin Blue Line, but these personalities stay in your head-which is the whole point. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It's an uneven movie, but a heartfelt and honest one. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: [It] powerfully suggests that violent death of any kind, whether personal or state-mandated, transforms everyone in its vicinity. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The title of this Werner Herzog documentary may suggest another expedition to the ends of the earth, but what concerns him here is the moral abyss of capital punishment and the metaphysical abyss of death itself. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Not since Errol Morris' masterwork of investigative documentary, "The Thin Blue Line," has a filmmaker had such an easy time of making the death penalty-crazed state of Texas look quite so casually venal. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Into the Abyss does what too few documentaries these days do - it gives ample play to all sides of the argument. Herzog allows us to think things through on our own. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: The abyss here isn't capital punishment, the ostensible subject of the film; it's the seemingly unending capacity for causing and enduring pointless misery that humans seem to have. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: It's really just a rambling episode of A Current Affair. Read more

Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter: A disquieting, heartbreaking look at American crime and punishment. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: What is missing is something new - clarity, insight, outrage. Instead, its understatement is ultimately its undoing. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The overriding point of Into the Abyss, what keeps this sad, sorrowful film from becoming depressing and elevates it far above the usual chatter of liberal-conservative debate, is that there can be light on the other end of even the darkest of tunnels. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: You come out shaken by the fathomless destructiveness of idiocy and the healing powers of belief and remediation. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Any subject Werner Herzog wants to explore is surely worthy of our interest. And his latest documentary is a characteristically insightful study of human nature. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Werner Herzog looks at the death penalty in "Into the Abyss," and as is almost always the case, to look through his eyes is to marvel. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: An inquiry into fundamental moral, philosophical, and religious issues, and an examination of humankind's capacity for violence - individual and institutional. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Watching Into the Abyss, I had the overwhelming sense that, somewhere along the way, Werner Herzog lost his way. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I've long felt Herzog's personality is compelling and penetrating, and in evidence I could offer this film about Texans who are so different from the West German director. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Regardless of your own stance on the death penalty, it's impossible not to be shaken by the senseless loss depicted in "Into the Abyss," the overwhelming sadness, but also the possibility of spiritual redemption. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: It's like a TV crime reality show made by an alien. Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Into the Abyss" makes a strong case for the inhumanity of capital punishment, regardless of the crime or the criminal. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Read more

Ben Walters, Time Out: The result is gripping, moving and revelatory, an unabashed if implicit critique of the death penalty. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Herzog is pursuing no agenda with Into the Abyss, despite his opposition to extreme judicial measures. He's seeking to answer the question of why people kill, especially in a situation such as this where the reason for the murders was so meaningless. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Herzog's investigation may not work as an anti-death-penalty editorial, but its findings are undeniably profound. Read more

Michelle Orange, Village Voice: An egalitarian study of crime and punishment in a small Southern town, Into the Abyss is also an unmistakably Herzogian inquiry into the lawlessness of the human soul. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: What could have been a well-aimed examination of the most troubling contradictions of capital punishment instead becomes a maudlin, unrestrained wallow. Read more