New Times (L.A.) by Bill Gallo

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.

San Francisco Chronicle by Jonathan Curiel

Disturbing film.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

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.

Philadelphia Inquirer by Carrie Rickey

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.

New York Post by Megan Lehmann

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

Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Sean Axmaker

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.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Ray Conlogue

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

Variety by Derek Elley

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

Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas

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

Village Voice by Ed Halter

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.

Washington Post

The film's hysterically pitched action overshadows its more subtle psychological points.

The New York Times by A.O. Scott

It's empty calories trying to trumpet its bogus nutritional value, and the strain for social importance undermines the picture.

New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman

Eventually any serious statement is lost in a sea of sadism, as he forces us to watch scene after scene of gruesome, humiliating torture.

Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman

Rigid, airless, and browbeatingly repetitive, Das Experiment is an overly didactic piece of thesis hectoring; it's like ''Lord of the Flies'' set in a Skinner box.

L.A. Weekly by Hazel-Dawn Dumpert

Too much of a mess to say anything with assurance, pieced together as it is from mismatched institutional movies such as "Cool Hand Luke" and "Shock Corridor" -- with "Lord of the Flies" thrown in for good measure -- and turning on plot points that simply don't wash.