Based on actual events, The Grey Zone is the story of the Auschwitz's twelfth Sonderkommando - one of the thirteen consecutive 'Special Squads' of Jewish prisoners placed by the Nazis in the excruciating moral dilemma of helping to exterminate fellow Jews in exchange for a few more months of life. The film chronicles the Sonder-kommando's struggle to organize the only armed revolt that would ever take place at Auschwitz.

As the rebellion is about to commence, a group from the unit discovers a fourteen-year-old girl who has miraculously survived a gassing. A catalyst for their desperate attempt at personal redemption, the men become obsessed with saving this one child even as doing so endangers the uprising, which could save thousands.

Writer/director Tim Blake Nelson is noble in his efforts to bring this little-known but important chapter of the Holocaust to the public's attention. Unfortunately, his heavy-handed approach to the material deadens the emotional impact the viewer needs to connect. The muddled story is filled with indistinguishable characters delivering stiff dialogue spoken in a David Mamet style that even Mamet himself would have shied away from using if he were making the film.

Nelson does manage to elicit a few moments of powerful drama, including a harrowing scene involving a watch. Yet his "in your face" approach to the subject matter and the relentless, graphic nature of the film becomes too much to bear after a while. Seldom is there any letup from the parade of graphic images of dead bodies, killings or torture. A little restraint on Nelson's part certainly would have gone a long way in delivering more of an emotional impact.

The actors give it their best, but to little avail. David Arquette (showing promise as a dramatic actor), Daniel Benzali, David Chandler and Allan Corduner (a standout as a Jewish doctor) are decent, while Steve Buscemi, Natasha Lyonne and an unrecognizable Mira Sorvino don't really make much of an impact. Harvey Keitel, as a Nazi Officer, is hard to take seriously thanks to a silly German accent (oddly enough, everyone else has an American accent).

Like the September 11th attacks on America, we need to be constantly reminded of the horrors of the Holocaust in order to prevent it from ever happening again. If Hollywood is going to help keep the memories alive though, they need to do so by making better films on the topic than The Grey Zone. Noble intentions do not a good film make.

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