Critic Reviews

En route, we also get a chance to examine the nature of the self and the responsibilities of science. Das Experiment has all this and more, excitingly packaged as a prison movie featuring superb performances and high emotional tension.

Because the confrontations between power and powerlessness are so dramatic and because Hirschbiegel's editing is so emphatic, Das Experiment is practically over before you realize that you don't know what its point is, exactly.

What impressed me is how effective the movie was, even though the outcome is a foregone conclusion. That's a tribute to the director, Oliver Hirschbiegel, and the actors, who have been chosen with the same kind of typecasting that perhaps occurs in life.

Disturbing film.

This is a grimly thrilling movie that falls somewhere between clear-eyed realism and the improbabilities of an action flick.

There's not enough insight to the social phenomenon presented onscreen, but that doesn't make the utterly human horror of this thriller any less unsettling.

One of those all-too-rare cases in which a riveting premise is expertly executed.

As an exploitation picture, Das Experiment is mindlessly potent; subtitles are no guarantee of sophistication and subtlety.

A solid slice of entertainment without reaching the psychological depths promised by the subject matter.

After the film's ultraviolent finale (set to the tacky beats of synth-pop volksmusik), one wonders whether this sharp bit of fascinating fascism provides a true analysis of television's new mean streak, or simply an engaging indulgence in same.