something truly amazing

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 12, 2008

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 22, 2007

If you've ever been fascinated by a large and complex construction site, Juan Carlos Rulfo's oddly affecting documentary may offer a kind of blue-collar bliss.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 4, 2007

Life on the freeway is hell, but what comes next for these workers might be worse.

| Original Score: B | May 4, 2007

Like the highway these men are building, Rulfo's film sails above the larger context that would actually bring emotional meaning to the lives he wants to celebrate.

| Apr 23, 2007

A fascinating and eye-opening chronicle of work and class issues in contemporary Mexico.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 6, 2007

Simple and often touching.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 6, 2007

The workers are upstaged by their work. And the film is a tribute to impressive labor -- its own.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 1, 2007

Equally as perplexing as its lack of perspective is the film's overall shortage of information.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 23, 2007

With countless Mexican workers laboring to build a massive freeway in Mexico City, filmmaker Juan Carlos Rulfo patiently focuses on a handful of the souls who might otherwise be forgotten among the working anonymous.

| Original Score: B+ | Feb 7, 2007

A terrific film.

| Feb 5, 2007

You long for more context on both workers and project, though a breathtaking five-minute-plus helicopter shot along the snaking concrete-and-iron colossus at the close helps distract from any moans.

| Feb 3, 2007

[Director] Rulfo's simple strategy of sticking close to his subjects and allowing them to wax philosophical about their lives and labors pays off.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Feb 2, 2007

Literally and existentially down and dirty, In the Pit is an absorbing documentary about work and the transformation of men into laborers.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 2, 2007

| Original Score: A | Feb 2, 2007

The men portrayed by Juan Carlos Rulfo in his colossally intimate film work under such precarious conditions that death must be as common as lunch pails.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 1, 2007

Though earnest, 'In the Pit' does not take off.

| Feb 1, 2007

In the midst of this nifty picture-making, one searches in vain for the big picture.

| Jan 30, 2007

Juan Carlos Rulfo's In the Pit is a documentary defined by symbiosis.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 12, 2006

Formally elegant depiction of lives of ordinary workers involved with mammoth construction project.

| Dec 8, 2006