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Why so much hype?

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

OK I am 40minutes through this movie, then suddenly I switched off.The story telling has badly executed very poorly, you don't get what's up. Out of context dialogues of random people. Maybe it will make sense later in the film, but how should I care if I already rage within the first 40% of the movie.The visuals are very bad, too dark, shadows all over the place. Of course this has been done on purpose, but it totally fails. I constantly blinked because of the eye strain due to my efforts of recognizing something. Also, why does the camera shake, is this blair witch?Not worth watching except you are one of those people which already admire a movie just because it picks up cruel facts of history.

This is truly one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen. If the goal of a great movie is to make its viewer changed forever, "The Grey Zone" certainly has succeeded. Yes it is not "Schindlers List". It has no uplifting theme, other than that in the face of no hope, doomed individuals tried desperately, if for nothing else, to save one life among millions of doomed. In the end even that effort is futile.It's images are haunting.Do to its depressing topic and even more disturbing ending others have criticized this movie as not being "entertaining". In fact it is entertaining. It is a horror movie of the real kind. The horror of human evil based on prejudice and hatred.Everyone needs to see this movie, with the exception of those who lived through it, as they already know!

The Grey Zone explores well-covered territory from a unique angle: that of the Jewish prisoners who prolonged their lives by four months by becoming members of a unit used to herd their fellow prisoners into the gas chambers. Inevitably, such a subject matter raises the question of to what lengths the viewer would go in order to stay alive, and the cost to the people who found themselves capable of colluding with their captors. When one new arrival to Auschwitz, ferried straight from the train to the shower's changing room, loudly challenges Hoffman (David Arquette) over his and his friend's breezy instructions to remember the number of the hook on which they hang their clothes so that they can find them after the shower, Hoffman beats him to a bloody pulp – as if for forcing him to confront what he is doing to his people. Despite this, the performances are subdued for the most part, the prisoner's attitudes to their situation almost matter-of-fact. Given fine food and alcohol in payment for their work, they live in ivory towers that have been stained by human ashes.The survival of a young girl after showering in the Nazi's deadly gas just as the men are preparing to stage their revolt triggers an emotional crisis amongst the members of the unit, with some insisting she be killed for their protection and others demanding she be allowed to live. They face a dilemma that is mirrored by those of the German soldiers who mill around the girl uncertainly after the protesters have all been killed. There is a line beyond which even those who have grown almost inhumanly inured to killing will hesitate to step. The girl, alone and defenceless, unlike the masses herded into the showers, forces them to put a face to their victims and ejects them from their oddly cocooned existence.The film is an adaptation of a stage play, apparently, and this fact is evident in the dialogue, which sometimes seems unreal, as if the speakers are somehow detached from the emotions they are supposed to be feeling. This may be deliberate, another example of the tamping down of their true emotions, but its sometimes distracting. Despite this, the performances are good, especially that of Harvey Keitel who seems to grow into the part of the German officer who knows he has lost touch with everything that made him human.

During the last days of World War II, as the soviets' bombs explode closer and closer as the days go by, the routine of concentration camp Awschwitz follows its course and represents the focus of this picture: the atmosphere of dread and death inhabiting the heavy air, the work inside the crematorium, the random executions of men, women and children,and the drama of the Jewish sonderkommando, a group formed by prisoners who, in exchange of better food and clothes, helped their tormentors in the systematic of death inside the camps, guiding the new arrived prisoners through the corridors that lead to the gas chambers, and the disposal of the bodies after wards, just to be killed some time latter. Let me just say this right from the get go: The Grey Zone is the finest, ultimate, grittiest portrayal of the Holocaust, in all its ugliness and horror. On the fact that The Grey Zone is highly underrated and little known is a complete mystery for me. Where Schindler's List bravely portrayed the dark events that went around in Germany, circa 1940's, it was built towards the light, towards an uplifting ending where hope prevails and courageous acts save the day. The Grey Zone, instead, offers no hope or alternative, nor uplifting ways, nor any of the characters show any noble redeeming actions towards their fellow inmates. Ultimately, it's about survival, and how we get our morals lost so easily when the instinct to stay alive kicks in. The Grey Zone's ugliness packs one hard punch - never in any other movie death was shown in such a realistic, brutal light. You actually fell you're inside the corridors of the crematorium, it's like you're trapped inside these tiny, claustrophobic gas chambers, it's like the putrid smell of the dead, yellow corpses piled up on the floor and the dread gets under your skin and stays there for days.Tim Blake Nelson was at the helm of The Grey Zone, and what a masterful filmmaker Mr. Nelson is...The sense of dread and dark tonalities of The Grey Zone put David Cronenberg to the shame. It should be regarded not as a movie, but as an experience.The script is tight and sober, reminded me of David Mamet in his most inspiring moments, regarding the dialogs and the exchanges between the characters. The photography and art department deserve praise: Awschwitz was worse than hell and people who visit these old concentration camps tend to say that after wards they fell this aura of pain and sadness. With Tim Blake Nelson's picture, although you're not physically there, The Grey Zone works as a tour through this place worse than hell. It is as creepy as the creepiest film can get, trust me.Performances here are all top notch and career defining. What really hurts is that The Grey Zone didn't get its deserved attention, because it poignantly proved what some movie stars are capable of, given the right material: David Arquette, an actor known for light comedies, is strikingly magnetic as the most fragile, mentally weakened sonderkommando, and his scenes are nothing short than harrowing and visceral. The moment when he is confronted by a newcomer prisoner about to be guided to the gas chamber is the stuff of cinematic history in terms of acting: as Arquette tells his lies ("you'll be guided to the bath and soon will be reunited with your family", and so on), this scared newcomer, realizing his fate, confronts him and says "It's a lie, I can't believe it's Jews doing this job!I'm going to die, but I'm going to live longer than you ever will, you're dead already!!", the desperate prisoner shouts at Arquette, and then Arquette loses his head and attacks this man to death, breaking his skull with punches and kicks, not really moved by angriness, but by sorrow and pain to recognize the awfulness of the truth spit on his face - yes, even him, Arquette, can't believe he is doing this, and the outlet of such sorrow comes into the forms of him losing his head and degrading and smashing a fellow Jew's skull to the death. Such a scary, harrowing movie moment... Mira Sorvino was a joy, and be prepared, you won't recognize her at first. The depths this wonderful actress went to create her character in a realistic light should be applauded. Mrs. Sorvino was highly commended for her work in Woody Allen's 1995 movie, but her performance in The Grey Zone rises above her other work, that's the picture Mrs. Sorvino should be recognized and awarded for.The other members of the cast have my respect, but I wanted to specifically point the performances of Sorvino and Arquette as the picture's true highlight in terms of acting. It was a crime that Lions Gate didn't work hard to promote this powerful material. The Grey Zone is a must see and a must have, a tour de force with performances for the ages and top notch cinematic achievements in every single department. A true ten, as exciting as films can get!!