"[With] dark Nietzschean insinuations and ferocious performances from Christian Bale and Steve Zahn."
Entertainment Weekly "Bale plays his character with much bravado..."
Box Office "[W]ith an authenticity and eccentricity that's pure Herzog....Just as rousing and involving as any more conventional film of the sort you could name."
Premiere "Herzog builds incredible tension without losing sight of the toll war takes on what makes us human."
Rolling Stone "Zahn and Bale enact an enthralling masculine duet. Out of a harrowing story set in a foreign thicket, Herzog has found American beauty." -- Grade: A-
Entertainment Weekly "Bale turns in a mesmerizing performance....Steve Zahn, a fellow captive, shows he has the chops for serious drama."
USA Today 4 stars out of 5 -- "Christian Bale is phenomenal....Gripping, emotional and, oddly, gloriously optimistic."
Total Film 3 stars out of 5 -- "Echoes of Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo reverberate around Dengler's predicament."
Empire 3 stars out of 5 -- "Immensely watchable, gripping and thematically of a piece with the likes of AGUIRRE WRATH OF GOD..."
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