Rating: 
Summary: Not for the faint of heart
Review: This movie was one of the best portayals of the Holocaust I have ever seen. The performances are outstanding, Harvey Keitel will send a chill down your spine as the unruffled, cool commandant of the camp. A combination of sinister charm that few actors can achieve. But the real stand out in the film is David Arquette, a man not known for seriousness, who gives a performance that is nothing short of amazing!
Other viewers complain that this film lacks entertainment. I'm sorry they missed the point, this movie is not meant to entertain. It is designed to educate on the seriousness and tragedy of one of the most heinous crimes in modern history. This is a fictionalized account surrounding an actual event, but the dialogue here serves more as a link and explanation of events rather than a story.
The main point is the situation and treatment of these people and their reactions and how they delt with it as well as the lengths an individual will go to, to try and survive in the most preverse of situations. Watch it for the History and the psychology - not because you want to be entertained.
Rating:
Summary: Oh my God. This is the real deal. Moving to say the least.
Review: Tim Blake Nelson directs an outstanding ensemble cast in what to my mind is the definitively realistic portrayal of WWII atrocities. Unlike 'Schindler's List' or 'The Pianist', there is but a shred of happy ending here. And it is simply that a small group of hopeless people did what they could to atone for their shameful choices, and to strike a blow for humanity, however brief and ultimately ineffectual. This is a stunning movie based on a true story. There's not a single wrong note, bad performance, forced sympathy, or easy out. It's bleak and powerful.
Rating: 
Summary: Overated but an important true story
Review: I'm a huge history buff so when I heard about a movie portraying the only armed revolt at the infamous Auschwitz camp I decided to buy the dvd. After I saw the movie, though, I was very disappointed. As other reviewers have already stated, the movie's main flaw is the ridiculous dialogue which is so strained & out of place it's insulting to the audience. The cast includes some great actors & actresses but they play characters that are hard to feel attached to thanks to the lousy script. Harvey Keitel as a German soldier was just not convincing at all. The movie does have some very disturbing scenes like when David Arquette beats a man to death just to get his watch. While Holocaust films should be disturbing to an audience, this one is disturbing without having any kind of positive message at the end, except that the revolt destroyed "almost half" of the ovens at Auschwitz. And as for the revolt, it lasts only a few minutes but is realistically staged. However, getting to that point in the movie took way too long because of the movie's sluggish pace. The dvd is just as disappointing as the movie itself, with no documentary about the movie or revolt. If you'd like to see a great movie about Jewish prisoners who revolted I recommend "Escape From Sobibor", which has a far more positive ending than this movie. Many of the events portrayed in this movie are taken directly from Dr. Miklos Nyiszli's controversial book "Auschwitz". He is one of the film's main characters, so I recommend you read his book to learn more about the revolt.
Rating:
Summary: Average Nazi Flick
Review: Last night I watched "The Grey Zone" because I was looking to rent "Conspiracy" and just watched "Amen". I reccommend "Amen" over this movie. Harvey Kietel does a good job holding the movie together but he is not good enough to make this a great film. I found the shots rather annoying because the camera bounced around. The dialogue seemed forced because it sounded like the actors were reading directly from a script in front of them. This made the performances unconvincing. The movie did get better as it went along. They did a good job of capturing the day to day routines of a nazi death camp. It gave me some insight into the operations and enlightened me about the brave desperate people that stood up to nazi rule. Decent, could have been better. Mira Sorvino has a small, well played part.
Rating: 
Summary: Definitely not a Hollywood take on the Holocaust.
Review: One cannot come away from a movie like this without feeling such sorrow at the atrocities carried out against the Jews and the depths to which mankind can sink. The Jews, like a number of people-groups throughout history, have had a very sad past, the latest being the Holocaust of WWII, and when watching this I was reminded of the biblical accounts of the numerous instances of Jewish 'slavery'.
This movie is set entirely in the concentration camp (i.e. there are no scenes of the war) and deals with the true story of Auschwitz's twelfth Sonderkommando and its attempts to fight their Nazi captors. _The Grey Zone_ might not be a Schindler's List, but I think it was more realistic in its portrayal of camp life. It is definitely a bleak film, and if you are expecting a movie about redemption or hope, then watch something 'Hollywood' instead. The Grey Zone lets you feel the sense of desperation and hopelessness that must have faced those people who knew that their days were numbered but struggled to hold onto their lives, even if it wasn't much of one.
The only fault I can find with this movie is the dialogue. The scriptwriter(s) really let this movie down by giving such unrealistic dialogues to these great actors. At times I was wondering whether this was an American drama or a movie about European Jews during World War II. I didn't see the rationale in giving the Germans a German accent while both Polish and Hungarian Jews had an American one. I would have preferred to have the actors with an accent even if it wasn't the best, rather than hear what was a very Americanized movie.
But, as I said, that was the only fault I found, so I hope it has not put you off this movie for good. I would highly recommend it, because it is a more realistic look at life within the concentration camps than some of the more rosy 'Holocaust films'.
Rating:
Summary: Bleak
Review: This movie does a good job of portraying the bleakness of this awful place/time. There are a few graphic and disturbing scenes but they are not done for shock value. In fact, there are several places where the filmmakers could have shown much more but used creative camera angles to give the viewer just enough visual information to know that the unseen is horrific. This isn't the most riveting holocaust movie and it could have used actors who looked a little worse than just tired. Rarely did the camp inmates look hollow and emaciated. At times the movie comes across with a feeling of hopelessness and desperation but overall it falls short in its quest to grip the viewer emotionally. My complaints about this film are from purely a technical standpoint... I believe that if this movie helps someone understand and appreciate what the victims of these horrible places went through, then it is good. I don't like the idea of people watching these holocaust shows for entertainment. To become numb to this event by relegating it to the same status as fictional/enjoyment movies is demeaning.
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