Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Murphy Howard I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Michael_Elliott Into the Abyss (2011) **** (out of 4) Another wonderful documentary from Werner Herzog. This one here has the famed director traveling to Texas where he meets two men convicted of a triple murder. One of the inmates was given a life sentence but the other has been sentenced to die in eight days after meeting the director. Also interviews are the victim's families as well as the families of the two men. INTO THE ABYSS was called by many to be a "anti-death penalty" film but I'd have to strongly disagree with that. Herzog is too great of a filmmaker to pick sides on the matter even though he admits that he is against it. The victim's families are allowed to speak on the matter and not for a single second did I think Herzog was trying to make the viewer see just one side of the picture. Plenty of details are given about the actual crime, which was about as senseless of a crime as you can get. We're introduced to the two killers and there wasn't a single second where I felt sorry for them. Herzog paints the picture that both men came from a worthless town and had worthless parents but that doesn't take away the fact that they brutally killed three people for no reason. I think what's so important and great about this film is that Herzog simply tells the story of what happens and lets the viewer make up their own mind about what should happen to them. The documentary also features an interview with a preacher who leads these men to their death and there's also an interview with a man who formally worked at the "Death House" and would strap the inmates down. INTO THE ABYSS is a pretty depressing look at people who messed up their lives for one reason or another. It's also depressing because we see how the victim's families are left without their loved ones. It's not exactly the easiest film to watch but Herzog handles the subject matter with such class that you can't help but see why he's so great at what he does.

supatube When a documentary has its own opinion it tends to fight with ones natural ability to think for oneself. And no other documentary film maker does this better than Werner Hertzog. Forcing you to listen to his opinion - and why should I care what Hertzogs opinion is? So is the film terrible? Not necessarily, its well made, all the plot points are there, it comes to an end but all the while infuriating me by telling me from the beginning 'this is how you should feel about the death penalty'. Naturally I take up defense but this is not necessarily how i feel about the topic at hand, I am just naturally inclined to stand up to force. And he tried to force me to agree with him. Agree or not, I cant respect this film, as it did not respect me as a free thinker. It tried to downplay a criminals actions and their role in retribution. It tried to make me feel something for people I couldn't. It tried to make a point in the most arrogant fashion. It even had glimpses of superiority, as the film maker is so much smarter than the subjects he is filming. Give me a break. I should have learnt my lesson from that bear documentary, that wasn't bad at all except for the part where he couldn't let us listen to the tape of the man being mauled by a bear (he felt it would be unethical) but filming himself listen to it and tell us how bad it is was just fine...? Why not just leave it out all together? Because that was the thrilling moment of the doccie. the hook. Ethical? Now, its not that i wanted to hear it but watching Hertzog reacting to the tape was a total removal from the story of the man who wanted to live with the bears. It was Hertzog's time to shine. The arrogance of this 'elitist' is astounding but people seem to be eating it up as if it were a sundae. Maybe some folk don't want to figure out how they actually feel about things, force feeding is just the right option, unfortunately I cant listen to a dictator.

jzappa It's easy to view documentaries as less yielding of creative potential or stylistic freedom since principally it's a matter of holding a lens up to a story that's writing itself, casting itself and no sets have to be built. Werner Herzog has never been limited by this concern.Many documentaries made nowadays are a series of talking heads and graphics montages. Maybe a filmmaker with a sense of humor will throw some ironically relevant music under the info-dumps. And documentary has also become virtually synonymous with issue and message films. Very few seem to find the same spiritual center as a fiction piece. Herzog does.Into the Abyss is about a horrific, random and senseless crime spree that culminates in one of the myriad executions carried out by the state of Texas every year. But it's not a commentary on capital punishment or the society that produced such brainless, directionless criminals. It does something much more brave and original.The movie goes on, the story is told, Herzog interviews his subjects, crime scene videotape details the nightmarish aftermath of atrocity having invaded the most peaceful and complacent of homes, we drive down depressing roads in the modern cultural wasteland of the place where the tragic saga has played out. And yet throughout, there is a tone and inflection imbued with grace, understatement and objectivity. We will experience all too real human pain, sometimes without warning, but we almost don't know what hit us until we've traversed well into the given moment.There is something so simple, so docile, in the face of whatever brutality or doom or emotional quakes, making Herzog's film transcend the identity of a social issue piece or a sensationalistic expose to become an elliptical, humane contemplation of violence, life and loss. Considering Herzog's uncannily unique subjects and treatment in fiction and in documentary for decades---past films have involved entire casts being under hypnosis during shooting or being entirely comprised of dwarfs, or stories about men held captive in dungeons for lifetimes until adulthood---Into the Abyss may seem small potatoes by comparison.But Herzog has often said he doesn't choose projects, that they instead choose him. If that's the case, then his approach as a documentary filmmaker, with works such as this or Grizzly Man or The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, is frankly uncanny, to stand still when he realizes the profundity of a story and simply allow it to wash over him and consume him. How many filmmakers have the wisdom and confidence to master such a process?

RShurtz57 I just watched a documentary by the masterful filmmaker, Werner Herzog, Into the Abyss. He does what a great filmmaker can do, change your perception of an issue. The film is not the most pleasant of subjects, a triple slaying of three people, and then the ensuing death by lethal injection of one of the two teenage murderers in the state of Texas. There are many reasons why I was so affected by the film, and I watch a lot of documentaries, the first being that I related so much to the two teenagers who did the killings.Herzog, the filmmaker, doesn't focus on the trial, rather, he focuses more on the anatomy of the crime, and the way in which each of the characters were affected. He has an amazing sense of place, just as he did with Grizzly Man,he puts the viewer directly into the film by establishing a feel of the surroundings, patiently filming poignant parts of the town where these people where from , so that one can really understand that this could be your neighborhood, your friend, your acquaintance, or even members of your own family. His interview style is unwavering and fearless, in fact, each of these people you felt trusted him completely, from the daughter whose mother was killed, to the father of one of the killers. Even the sheriff who investigated the crime ten years before, had none of the resistance that law enforcement can sometimes have in an interview like this. I'm remiss in not mentioning the interview of the Captain of the team that carried out so many of the executions in Texas, sometimes two a week, until he resigned after the execution of Karla Rae Tucker, the first woman to be executed in Texas since the Civil War. His testimony was powerful, coming from this huge man with the Texas accent, who was changed by that particular execution, and changed his view on capitol punishment, and this after doing it for ten years. He claims the execution of Karla Rae Tucker caused him an introduction to his real self, and as he says near the end of the film, "No one has the right to take another person's life, no matter the circumstances."In Werner Herzog's film, he doesn't excuse the crimes that they committed, but he does cause the viewer to look and think about the great mountain of destruction that was built even before these two teen killers were born. The one tried to take care of the other one, by taking him in to live with him in a camper. Before that, the boy was living in the trunk of an abandoned car. I think that was what was impressive about the film, that Werner Herzog gave something to this whole situation, and not just to the young man who would die eight days later, but to everyone involved. He gave the other boy's father a chance to seek some kind of redemption, and fight for his son's life, even when he had taken lives himself.The film made me think of the fragile circumstances that exist for so many kids growing up between a life in prison or on death row. Sometimes, it requires the risky intervention on the part of someone who is actually living Christian principles instead of talking about them.Herzog is a patient filmmaker. Even the long shots that he chooses too edit into the film are packed full of sub-text. One has to stay open and un-affected by the usual techniques of filmmaking, depending on quick edits and short sound bites. Herzog is a master, and if one is willing to trust him completely, the pay-off is extraordinary.