The film's clumsiness detracts from the solemnity of the story and makes even decent actors such as Harvey Keitel and Steve Buscemi look bad.
The Grey Zone (2002)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:80
Fresh:55
Rotten:25
Average Rating:7/10
Consensus: A grim and devastating tale of the Holocaust.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for strong holocaust violence, nudity and language
Runtime: 1 hr 48 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Oct 18, 2002 Limited
Box Office: $186,080
Synopsis: Writer-director-actor Tim Blake Nelson presents THE GREY ZONE, a relentlessly bleak drama that uses one of history's most incomprehensible calamities to address the ultimate question of human... Writer-director-actor Tim Blake Nelson presents THE GREY ZONE, a relentlessly bleak drama that uses one of history's most incomprehensible calamities to address the ultimate question of human survival. Based in large part on Miklos Nyiszli's book, AUSCHWITZ: A DOCTOR'S EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT, THE GREY ZONE is set in the nightmarish world of Auschwitz in the 1940s. The film tells the brutal tale of the twelfth Sonderkommando unit, Jewish prisoners who were granted a few extra months of life in return for their services in helping with the genocide of their people. While organizing a revolt against the Nazis, a group of Sonderkommandos (played with ferocious intensity by David Arquette, Daniel Benzali, David Chandler, and Steve Buscemi) discover a young girl who has somehow managed to survive the gas chamber. Risking their lives, they team up with a fellow Jew, Doctor Nyiszli (Allan Corduner), to revive the fragile youngster and redeem themselves in the process. Nelson's excruciating drama is all the more unsettling for its unflinching honesty. By placing his characters in a world suffused with death, he creates an unbearable scenario where every decision determines the fate of dozens, if not hundreds, of innocent lives. THE GREY ZONE also features deeply impassioned performances by Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino, and Natasha Lyonne. [More]
Starring: David Arquette, Daniel Benzali, Steve Buscemi, Allan Corduner
Starring: David Arquette, Daniel Benzali, Steve Buscemi, Allan Corduner, Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino, Natasha Lyonne, David Chandler
Director: Tim Blake Nelson
Director: Tim Blake Nelson
Screenwriter: Tim Blake Nelson
Producer: Christine Vachon, Pamela Koffler, Tim Blake Nelson
Composer: Jeff Danna
Studio: Lions Gate Films
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Reviews for The Grey Zone
The Grey Zone gives voice to a story that needs to be heard in the sea of Holocaust movies...but the film suffers from its own difficulties.
every time Steve Buscemi and Natasha Lyonne open their mouths, you think they're auditioning for a dinner theater version of Fiddler on the Roof.
Though there’s a clarity of purpose and even-handedness to the film’s direction, the drama feels rigged and sluggish.
Even in its darkest moments, a heartening defiance underlies gut-wrenching calamity.
Unlike other Holocaust films, in which good and evil are always clearly delineated, Nelson has found a grey zone of ambiguous morality.
[Nelson's] movie about morally compromised figures leaves viewers feeling compromised, unable to find their way out of the fog and the ashes.
An unflinching film, The Grey Zone takes us right into the gas chambers.
Russell Lee Fine's handheld camera presses you repeatedly too close to the characters' perpetual fatigue and resilience, their pains to survive when they cannot.
In this labor of angst, directed by actor Tim Blake Nelson from his play, standard acting and 'plot' become reductive brackets.
As bold and unyielding as The Grey Zone stands with its historical subtext, there are a few factors detracting from the powerful message.
Effectively feeds our senses with the chilling sights and sounds from within the camp to create a completely numbing experience.
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