97% The Act Of Killing

All Critics (77) | Top Critics (24) | Fresh (75) | Rotten (2)

A horrifying yet mesmerizing work, "The Act of Killing" instructively meanders at times as in a Werner Herzog film.

Better characters could hardly have been invented.

What Oppenheimer is after is a parallel story, a glimpse into the minds of men who can recount mass killings and think "Those were the days."

"The Act of Killing" works on so many levels -- psychodrama, horror movie, Orwellian nightmare, Poe story -- that sifting through your reactions could take days.

I can't be more direct. "The Act of Killing" is one of the most extraordinary films you'll ever encounter, not to mention one of the craziest filmmaking concepts anywhere, and that includes the whole Bollywood thing.

There is no sense of remorse in these men for what they did to so many innocent people and that...is chilling.

Watching these crazy loons make a movie about their crimes against humanity may not be the most pleasant way to spend an evening. But you can't deny that it's utterly fascinating.

Directors Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn have created something extraordinary in The Act of Killing, the much-talked-about documentary about torture and murder during the Indonesian dictatorship of the '60s and '70s.

This riveting documentary about political mass murder in Indonesia incorporates the killers' own movie fantasies about their massacres and deepens our understanding of the fascist brain.

It's a tough watch, but it's not like anything you've ever seen.

Anwar Congo may be the scariest person you'll see on screen this year.

If director Joshua Oppenheimer occasionally loses his way in his own narrative, where this picture demands attention is in its chilling portrait of indoctrination and evil.

It's a gut-wrenching and emotionally exhausting look at impunity that resonates far beyond its obscure central conflict.

A cynically exploitative film made in the name of human rights, which it has about as much to do with as the Punked show on MTV.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_act_of_killing/

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