This film, like Leon Uris' excellent novel Mila 18, is a great telling of a little known story of the Holocaust. The film moves rapidly from the Nazi invasion of Poland in September of 1939 to the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto rebellion in April of 1943. But the viewer never seems lost in the rapid movement of time and history. It covers various aspects of the Final Solution policies rapidly, but explains each one. There are moments of incredible horror and sadness in this film. Seeing observant Jewish men having their beards cut off as Nazi guards laugh; the never ending death cart with its bodies, victims of starvation and disease; the refusal of Polish resistance groups outside the ghetto to aid the fighting, desperate Jews. But in the end, it is a movie about the triumph of the heart and the will. The young Jews in the ghetto, led by Mordecai Anielewicz, are inspiring and heart-rending heroes--plain and simple.

Hank Azaria's performance as the aforementioned Anielewicz is on the mark throughout the film, as is Jon Voight's as the Nazi General Stroop, a man who exudes evil and the unwillingness to accept the truth about what the Jews are doing to his Nazi troops. David Schwemmer and Leelee Sobieski are equally fine as young Jewish ghetto fighters.

This movie deserves to be seen. It will re-inforce the horrors of bigotry and prejudice while at the same time giving a compelling lesson on the strength of the human condition.