Fred Leuchter is just one deluded figure, but by the end of this great and chilling sick-joke documentary he stands as a living icon of the banality of evil.
Seems more like a subtle, elegiac tone poem than an indictment of human banality and the evil that men do.
88
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Brings the viewer up close and personal with the face of evil.
88
USA TodayMike Clark
USA TodayMike Clark
With his coolly objective moon's-eye view serving a story that's bizarre by even his long-established career standards, the great documentarian Errol Morris examines the perils of vanity - though others will understandably make more sinister interpretations.
88
New York PostLou Lumenick
New York PostLou Lumenick
Morris' most gripping film since "The Thin Blue Line," is the year's scariest movie.
Errol Morris' characteristically distanced documentary is empathetic without being especially sympathetic.
80
TimeRichard Corliss
TimeRichard Corliss
The fascinating film equivalent of a humane execution.
70
Film.comJohn Hartl
Film.comJohn Hartl
(Morris) sees Leuchter's story as more personal, more about one individual's self-absorption and folly, than an indictment of a particular system.
70
Newsweek
Newsweek
At the heart of all Morris's films -- from "The Thin Blue Line" to "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control" -- is a fundamental belief in the unreliability of truth.
60
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Morris, who more or less invented the ironic documentary, seems to struggle here for an appropriate tone even as he allows Leuchter more than enough rope to hang himself.