Into the Abyss
IFC Films | Release Date: November 11, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
5
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonNov 23, 2011
Into the Abyss makes a strong case for the inhumanity of capital punishment, regardless of the crime or the criminal. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleAmy BiancolliNov 10, 2011
Herzog, as ever, is obsessed most of all with human nature: Into the Abyss explores our deepest urges to love, and live, and kill. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertNov 9, 2011
Into the Abyss may be the saddest film Werner Herzog has ever made. It regards a group of miserable lives, and in finding a few faint glimmers of hope only underlines the sadness. Read full review
91
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerDec 3, 2011
It gives ample play to all sides of the argument. Herzog allows us to think things through on our own. Read full review
90
MovielineAlison WillmoreNov 9, 2011
Into the Abyss, which bears the subtitle "A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life," reveals itself to be an outlandish, compassionate and, at times, improbably buoyant film about life's capacity for grief and horror and about how it bubbles on miraculously in the face of such things. It's the best thing Herzog's done in years. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezDec 1, 2011
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 full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaNov 17, 2011
Into the Abyss is a true-crime drama, to be sure, but in Herzog's hands it becomes something much more: an inquiry into fundamental moral, philosophical, and religious issues, and an examination of humankind's capacity for violence - individual and institutional. Read full review
88
New York PostKyle SmithNov 11, 2011
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 full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrNov 10, 2011
What Herzog almost accidentally captures in his viewfinder is profound and unsettling: an entire American underclass where at least some prison time is the norm and where only luck and the grace of God keep a person from either wrong end of the shotgun. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineBill WeberNov 5, 2011
Underlying the occasionally harrowing, consistently mournful tone is a philosophy that, more than being explicitly anti-capital punishment, puts both family ties and the social contract at the center of people's self-worth. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasNov 9, 2011
His film powerfully suggests that violent death of any kind, whether personal or state-mandated, transforms everyone in its vicinity. Read full review
80
Total FilmKevin HarleyMar 19, 2012
Herzog's tapestry testifies to life's light from death's darkness. Its honest humanity and sideways-on character bare his illuminating imprint. Read full review
80
EmpirePhilip WildingFeb 20, 2012
A haunting portrayal of people who are neither completely innocent nor wholly evil, and the terrible price of killing, whether in the pursuit of a sports car or in the name of justice. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. ScottNov 10, 2011
Into the Abyss superficially resembles the kind of titillating, moralizing true-crime shockumentary that is a staple of off-hours cable television. But the grim ordinariness of the narrative makes its Dostoyevskian dimensions all the more arresting. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesNov 10, 2011
Herzog's wrenching interviews with the victims' relatives, may not turn anyone against capital punishment, but they're gripping nonetheless. Incidentally, the spiritual inquiry Herzog aims for here has already been rendered onscreen, in Steve James and Peter Gilbert's powerful documentary "At the Death House Door" (2008). Read full review
80
Village VoiceMichelle OrangeNov 8, 2011
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 full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfNov 8, 2011
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 full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeNov 7, 2011
These days, true-crime docs are a dime a dozen, and yet, returning to the "In Cold Blood" analogy, Into the Abyss dares to plumb the dark hole in America's soul. Herzog's investigation may not work as an anti-death-penalty editorial, but its findings are undeniably profound. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenNov 6, 2011
But above all it's a portrait of stunned grief, of the devastation families endure, whether through violence, accidents, illness or incarceration. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenDec 9, 2011
By Herzog's lofty standards, the result is mildly disappointing. The film lacks the sociological depth of "The Executioner's Song" or the emotional wallop of "In Cold Blood." But it sure is a surpassingly, and compellingly, strange tale. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianMarc MohanNov 23, 2011
This is more Errol Morris' or Truman Capote's territory than Herzog's, and his patient, determinedly respectful interviews with members of the American underclass bear a whiff of European condescension. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 10, 2011
The film is a river of pain, weirdly funny in places, as are all of Herzog's filmic essays. Read full review
70
TimeRichard CorlissNov 10, 2011
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 full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliNov 16, 2011
For a documentarian of Herzog's stature, Into the Abyss ranks as a disappointment. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 29, 2012
It is a sombre, thoughtful, restrained and often powerful piece of work. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNov 10, 2011
The story is never less than gripping, but the most important questions disappear into that unbearably bleak abyss. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyNov 10, 2011
What is missing is something new - clarity, insight, outrage. Instead, its understatement is ultimately its undoing. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovNov 16, 2011
Herzog, ever the eccentric filmmaker on a mission, may have met his match in this man of the cloth. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanNov 10, 2011
The film has the same moral design as "Dead Man Walking," but since it never gets inside the darkness of the killers' minds, it's really just a rambling episode of "A Current Affair." Read full review
25
Washington PostAnn HornadayNov 17, 2011
A shapeless collection of encounters with Texas prison inmates and their victims, what could have been a well-aimed examination of the most troubling contradictions of capital punishment instead becomes a maudlin, unrestrained wallow. Read full review
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