B+


The Grey Zone is a rather unusual Holocaust film by Tim Blake Nelson. It's devoid of sentimentality of most movies dealing with this subject matter and tries to simply be an edgy and gritty film about compromises humans sometimes make with their own values and the "grey zone" most of us are living in as far as our morals go. While Nelson succeeds in making this something "different", it's not a masterpiece either, but much rather a well-made and well-intended flick that lacks in execution at times.

We're thrown right into the story here with the Auschwitz prisoners planning an insurrection. There is not much exposition, no introducing of the characters...and that hurts the emotional aspect of the movie most of the time. The whole ting just feels more distant than it should and I doubt that was Nelson's intention. Moreover, Harvey Keitel's leading Nazi just hams it up too much and delivers a rather subpar performance. The rest of the cast, however, does a pretty fine job. The movie gets better as it proceeds and the final 20-25 minutes are just excellent and tragically powerful. I wish the rest has been similar as well. The film really takes some time to get used to it, though.