I went into this hoping to listen to the soothing voice of Werner Herzog blowing my mind with German accented philosophy. I looked forward to him condemning the barbarism of the death penalty -- and while he gets plenty of chances, throughout the film he refrains. He speaks only a few times in this documentary and never directly to the audience, which is unusual for Herzog. Nevertheless, he has crafted a documentary of such fascinating confessions and testimony -- from some of the simplest, blue collar people out of Texas of all places -- as I have ever seen. His last interview with a death row prison guard who, during a period of time when George W. Bush (governor) couldn't seem to stop executing prisoners, found himself teetering on the edge of the titular soulless void, is perhaps the most profound confession I've ever seen given in a documentary.