Non member Defiance Reviews
Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2008 7:05 am
http://www.ny1.com/Content/ny1_living/9 ... fault.aspx
War drama 'Defiance' meets with resistance
By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY
2.5/4
Despite its fascinating real-life origins, Defiance comes across more like an earnest history lesson than a compelling World War II drama.
The story of three Jewish brothers in 1941 Poland who escape the Nazis by taking refuge in the Belorussian forest is hampered by plodding solemnity, generic action sequences and cinematic clichés. Still, the cinematography by Eduardo Serra is evocative, and the main performances — particularly by Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber as clashing brothers — are strong.
Director Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond) has made a movie that feels like something we've seen before — and not because there have been several Holocaust-themed films lately. He relies on convention and formula, which leaves the film feeling muted rather than gritty like Glory, another Zwick historical film.
Craig, Schreiber and Jamie Bell play the Bielski brothers, who join Russian resistance fighters during the Holocaust and protect themselves and others, creating a mini-civilization hidden among the thick trees. What emerges is a predictable action-adventure rather than a complex and intimate portrait of a group of courageous individuals fighting for their lives.
The larger struggle against the Nazis is undermined by a contest between Craig's Tuvia, who has renounced outright vengeance, and his hotheaded brother Zus (Schreiber). The youngest Bielski, Asael (Bell), is torn between the rivalry of his siblings. Each feels like a "type" rather than a fully drawn character, and we don't learn enough about the origins of their friction to draw us emotionally into their conflict.
The tale of the resistance movement in Belorussia is undeniably inspiring and ideally suited for a cinematic rendering. But Defiance resists bold, passionate storytelling and delivers something rather conventional.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/rev ... ance_N.htm
Tale Of 'Defiance' Among The Third Reich's Targets
One of the lazy cliches of too many Holocaust movies is that Europe's Jews were exterminated without offering any resistance. Historians know that there's evidence to the contrary — as Edward Zwick's new film Defiance demonstrates.
It's the story of the Bielski brothers, who kept 1,200 Jews alive in the forests of Belarus during World War II. The Bielskis were so contentious they not only fought the Germans, they fought each other.
The strongest part of Defiance, frankly, might be those fraternal conflicts. We meet the Bielskis, played by Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber, in 1941, when they discover that the invading Germans have killed their parents and have likely put a price on their own heads as well.
Zus Bielski, one of Schreiber's strongest film portrayals, is the wild hothead of the family. He's filled with a burning desire for "blood for blood" revenge, as well as smoldering class resentments against the Jews who looked down on the Bielskis until they needed their help.
His brother Tuvia, well-played by Craig, is capable of cold fury when it's called for, but he's more of a stoic than is Zus.
He also feels more of a responsibility than his furious sibling does to protect the helpless Jews who've escaped to the woods from urban ghettos.
Defiance, however, often departs from the harsher realities of this core story and traffics in earnestness and sentimentality. There's too much on-the-nose dialogue and wisecracking-through-tough-times talk.
It all feels like stuff we've heard before, and hearing it in the middle of a Belarus forest doesn't improve it enough. When it's being true to itself instead of generic — just as the Belskis were — is when this film's at its best.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=98849255
Review: 'Defiance'
A great story fights its way through thickets of Hollywood banter and sentimentality.
By Kenneth Turan FILM CRITIC
A Russian partisan commander looks dismissively at the Bielski brothers, eyeing tough Zus (Liev Schreiber) and tougher Tuvia (Daniel Craig) and proclaiming, "Jews don't fight." ¶ "These Jews do," comes the prompt reply, and "Defiance," the new film by Edward Zwick, is determined to prove that point. ¶ Though one of the standard clichés of the Holocaust is that Europe's Jews were exterminated without offering any resistance, historians have gradually uncovered evidence to the contrary, with the Bielskis being the prime case in point. ¶ Along with sibling Asael (Jamie Bell), the brothers not only formed a partisan unit that took on the Germans in the heavily wooded areas of what is now Belarus, they created a community in those woods that managed to keep 1,200 Jews alive until the war ended. ¶ Zwick, who wrote the screenplay with Clayton Frohman based on a book by Nechama Tec, has been trying to dramatize that story for at least a dozen years. As it appears on screen today, "Defiance" has some genuine strengths but also some weaker elements, and these opposing traits battle it out kind of the way the contentious Bielskis fought not only the Germans but each other.
The strongest part of "Defiance," frankly, might be those fraternal conflicts. Craig and Schreiber are two excellent actors, and both of them connect strongly with their roles as well as their fierce rivalry.
We meet all three brothers almost at the same moment in 1941, when they discover that the invading Germans have killed their parents and likely put a price on their own heads as well.
Passionately played by Schreiber in one of his strongest film roles, Zus is the wild hothead of the family, filled with a burning desire for "blood for blood" revenge as well as smoldering class resentments against the higher class Jews who looked down on the Bielskis until they needed their help.
His brother Tuvia, well-played by Craig, though capable of cold fury when it's called for, is much more of a stoic and closer to a natural commander than Zus. He also feels more of a responsibility than his furious sibling does to protect the helpless Jews who've escaped to the woods from urban ghettos.
Over the course of several projects, particularly the recent "Blood Diamond," Zwick has become quite proficient at crisply done action sequences, and the frequent fire fights and killings in "Defiance" have a powerful effect.
Whenever "Defiance" departs from the harsher realities of its story, however, when it leaves behind the particularity of its story and deals with the generic, it risks trafficking in the kind of earnestness and sentimentality it is better off without.
On the one hand, it is appropriate and likely true to life to give each of the Bielskis a beautiful "forest wife," the term used for the common law arrangements the war encouraged, and having fine actresses like Alexa Davalos, Mia Wasikowska and Iben Hjejle certainly helps.
On the other hand, the film has too much on-the-nose dialogue and wisecracking-through-tough-times sentiments, particularly in the dialogue between the religious Shimon Haretz (Allan Corduner) and the intellectual Isaac Malbin (Mark Feuerstein). It all feels like stuff we've heard before, and hearing it in the middle of a Belarus forest doesn't improve it enough.
But when "Defiance" returns to situations that could have come from no other film, it strengthens its hand. Being true to itself, just as the Bielskis were, is what this film does best.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/ne ... 3782.story
‘Defiance’ can’t decide what it wants to be
Rousing WWII action movie weighed down by Oscar-film pretensions
“Defiance” director Edward Zwick certainly isn’t afraid of archetypes: We know who the villain’s going to be (it’s the guy with the bad teeth), we know who’s going to marry the hero (it’s the one woman who looks stunning with apparently no makeup on) and we know who the hero is (it’s Daniel Craig as the movie’s one blond, blue-eyed Russian Jew).
It’s too bad that Zwick didn’t feel secure enough about what’s best about “Defiance” — the film’s action-packed scenes of armed resistance against Nazis fighting in Russia — and found himself trapped in another archetype, that of the serious, self-aware, Important Holocaust Drama.
Not that the horrors of the Final Solution don’t still resonate some 60 years after the end of World War II, but does every film on the topic have to be so crushingly earnest? For all its flaws — and there were a lot of them — didn’t “Life is Beautiful” open the door a little to alternate approaches to discussing this genocide on film?
Starting with a true story — which, in Hollywood terms, means that what you see on screen bears only fleeting resemblance to actual people and occurrences — “Defiance” tells the story of the Bielski brothers, who kept thousands of Jews alive in the woods of Belarussia while also getting into armed battles with the Nazi occupiers and even raiding their compounds.
Besides World War II itself, the other big conflict being fought out in “Defiance” is the difference of opinion between the brothers: Tuvia (Craig), the oldest, is more concerned with keeping their cadre alive, even though it means taking care of children and the elderly, while hot-headed second brother Zus (Liev Schreiber) wants to join up with the Red Army to kill more Germans.
The taut action sequences, the interplay between Craig and Schreiber and Jamie Bell (as younger brother Asael), and Zus’ prickly relationship with his comrades in the notoriously anti-Semitic Russian Army all crackle, and they point to what could have been an immensely satisfying, “Great Escape” kind of adventure.
But then there’s all the philosophizing and the breast-beating and the “God will save us!” stuff that’s been handled frequently and far more interestingly in any number of other Holocaust movies. In “Defiance,” it just feels tacked on, as though making “just” an action movie about Jews in this period of history were somehow glib or heretical
Nonetheless, “Defiance” is frequently engaging, from its stellar cast (Mark Feuerstein and the great Allan Corduner are a kick as a pair of bickering intellectuals) to its gripping suspense. It’s a shame that Zwick and his co-scenarist Clayton Frohman, adapting the book by Nechama Tec, seem — much like Asael in the film — to be torn between two rival agendas.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28437482/
Defiant, but Oddly Lacking
Review By David Kempler
2.5/4
For the past few months I have been seeing a trailer for "Defiance." It is possible that I have watched it more than ten times. With each viewing, I assumed that a very powerful Oscar contender was about to be unfurled upon the viewing public. I finally saw the actual film. It was a letdown. This does not mean it is a bad film. Far from it. But there is something missing that prevents it from being an extraordinary film. I'm not certain what is holding it back, although I have a few theories.
"Defiance" is based on a true story about four Jewish brothers from West Belarus in Poland who escape from the Nazis after their family is murdered. Instead of fleeing, they decide to fight back. Through fate, they also take on the role of protector to other Jews, rescuing over 1,200 from the ghettos in Poland. The film, directed by Edward Zwick ("Blood Diamond") is an adaptation of Nechama Tec's "Defiance: The Bielski Partisans." In the book, pacifist and non-militant Polish Jews come together and train for military duty in order to oppose the German and Russian occupation of their homeland.
Tuvia Bielski (Daniel Craig) and his brother Zus (Liev Schreiber) are the two leaders of the movement. Tuvia is primarily concerned with hiding people in the woods and keeping them safe from invading German forces, while Zus is more inclined toward seeking revenge for his family's massacre, joining up with Russian freedom fighters. This causes a rift between the two Bielski brothers but it is a rift that is obviously repairable.
"Defiance" is a great story, mostly because it is true. Unfortunately, this filmed version of the events is lacking in oomph. It feels scripted, invoking an emotional reaction from its audience based on obvious cues rather than allowing reactions to flow naturally from the depicted events.
Craig does his usual fine job but Schreiber left me cold in his portrayal of Zus. To be fair, I am not a huge Schreiber fan, so there may be some prejudicial bias coloring my appraisal. But even if I can get past that, I can't get past that the film feels artificial, even though it is based on truth. I don't think the movie-going public will be all that disappointed with "Defiance" but I do think that my initial guess that this would be a huge Oscar contender was dead wrong.
http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/Defiance.shtml
Poor act of 'Defiance': Film fails to do justice to an important story
by Stephen Whitty/The Star-Ledger
Victims don't often star in their own histories.
Even when they've survived the most horrible oppressions, they don't write the first texts. It's the proud liberators who do that -- and sometimes, unwittingly, victimize them a second time. Because not every suffering minority was waiting, passively, to be saved. Often they've been fighting for themselves all along.
Like the Jews of "Defiance."
There have been many movies about the Holocaust -- half-a-dozen, it seems, in just the past two months. But this film, based on a true story, isn't about the ghetto but the forests. About the Jews who tore off their yellow stars and picked up guns, and made their own justice.
It's an unusual and important story. Which makes it even sadder that it's not better told.
Watching the movie you realize there's a precedent here, and a pretty ambitious one: "Spartacus." There's something of Kirk Douglas in the clenched physicality of Daniel Craig, particularly as he slowly builds his little community of outcasts in the woods -- even mildly mocking the useless intellectuals who join them.
The difference, though, is that "Spartacus" was written by a witty leftist, Dalton Trumbo, who really believed in its ideals of social revolution; it was directed by a genuine genius, Stanley Kubrick, who had both a soaring visual sense and just enough weary misanthropy to balance Trumbo's soaring inspiration.
And "Defiance" is co-written and directed by Edward Zwick.
Zwick is a pleasant man, and probably a decent one; he named his company Bedford Falls, after the sweet town of "It's a Wonderful Life," and his projects range from TV's "thirtysomething" to the Oscar-winning "Glory." But too many of his pictures are pat and politically predictable. Movies like "Blood Diamond" and "The Last Samurai" take all the "right" stands, but where's the pulse of drama? The shock of art?
"Defiance" has a sturdy, based-on-fact story, as three brothers, fleeing the Nazi liquidation of their village, take to the Byelorussian woods. Eventually they're joined by other refugees, some with guns, and a debate ensues: Should their priority be survival, or resistance? One brother opts for the first, building a sort of ever-traveling shtetl; the other chooses the second, joining up with a straggling Red Army squadron.
Craig and Liev Schreiber are the brothers, and although they're miscast -- they're the least likely fraternal pair since Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson in "The Darjeeling Limited" -- they're both fine actors. Yet Zwick's script (co-written with Clayton Frohman) seems, even if based on fact, to be too heavily contrived. The brother's disagreement over tactics seems more a function of the plot than philosophy, their reunion a just-in-time Hollywood ending.
The idea of refugees taking to the forest and living off the land (and wealthy landowners) has real old-movie appeal; it's like Robin Hood and his Merry Menschen. But Zwick's movie never moves behind those cliches. The villain among them has bad teeth while the women remain nicely groomed; Craig's wooden hovel, somehow, comes complete with glass windows (and fire-lit love scene). Supporting characters feel like kvetching outcasts from Anatevka.
For all his armchair humanism, Zwick has always had skill with action sequences; an early scene, when Craig goes to confront the men who killed his family, has a rough power to it, and a final battle against the German army is full of excitement. And the characters' proactive heroism is an important corrective (as, in its own way, was "Munich") to movies about victimized Jews, dependent on righteous gentiles. Many fought back themselves, and this is one of the stories.
It's just a shame it wasn't told in a faster, fresher and more surprising way.
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/inde ... to_an.html
War drama 'Defiance' meets with resistance
By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY
2.5/4
Despite its fascinating real-life origins, Defiance comes across more like an earnest history lesson than a compelling World War II drama.
The story of three Jewish brothers in 1941 Poland who escape the Nazis by taking refuge in the Belorussian forest is hampered by plodding solemnity, generic action sequences and cinematic clichés. Still, the cinematography by Eduardo Serra is evocative, and the main performances — particularly by Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber as clashing brothers — are strong.
Director Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond) has made a movie that feels like something we've seen before — and not because there have been several Holocaust-themed films lately. He relies on convention and formula, which leaves the film feeling muted rather than gritty like Glory, another Zwick historical film.
Craig, Schreiber and Jamie Bell play the Bielski brothers, who join Russian resistance fighters during the Holocaust and protect themselves and others, creating a mini-civilization hidden among the thick trees. What emerges is a predictable action-adventure rather than a complex and intimate portrait of a group of courageous individuals fighting for their lives.
The larger struggle against the Nazis is undermined by a contest between Craig's Tuvia, who has renounced outright vengeance, and his hotheaded brother Zus (Schreiber). The youngest Bielski, Asael (Bell), is torn between the rivalry of his siblings. Each feels like a "type" rather than a fully drawn character, and we don't learn enough about the origins of their friction to draw us emotionally into their conflict.
The tale of the resistance movement in Belorussia is undeniably inspiring and ideally suited for a cinematic rendering. But Defiance resists bold, passionate storytelling and delivers something rather conventional.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/rev ... ance_N.htm
Tale Of 'Defiance' Among The Third Reich's Targets
One of the lazy cliches of too many Holocaust movies is that Europe's Jews were exterminated without offering any resistance. Historians know that there's evidence to the contrary — as Edward Zwick's new film Defiance demonstrates.
It's the story of the Bielski brothers, who kept 1,200 Jews alive in the forests of Belarus during World War II. The Bielskis were so contentious they not only fought the Germans, they fought each other.
The strongest part of Defiance, frankly, might be those fraternal conflicts. We meet the Bielskis, played by Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber, in 1941, when they discover that the invading Germans have killed their parents and have likely put a price on their own heads as well.
Zus Bielski, one of Schreiber's strongest film portrayals, is the wild hothead of the family. He's filled with a burning desire for "blood for blood" revenge, as well as smoldering class resentments against the Jews who looked down on the Bielskis until they needed their help.
His brother Tuvia, well-played by Craig, is capable of cold fury when it's called for, but he's more of a stoic than is Zus.
He also feels more of a responsibility than his furious sibling does to protect the helpless Jews who've escaped to the woods from urban ghettos.
Defiance, however, often departs from the harsher realities of this core story and traffics in earnestness and sentimentality. There's too much on-the-nose dialogue and wisecracking-through-tough-times talk.
It all feels like stuff we've heard before, and hearing it in the middle of a Belarus forest doesn't improve it enough. When it's being true to itself instead of generic — just as the Belskis were — is when this film's at its best.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=98849255
Review: 'Defiance'
A great story fights its way through thickets of Hollywood banter and sentimentality.
By Kenneth Turan FILM CRITIC
A Russian partisan commander looks dismissively at the Bielski brothers, eyeing tough Zus (Liev Schreiber) and tougher Tuvia (Daniel Craig) and proclaiming, "Jews don't fight." ¶ "These Jews do," comes the prompt reply, and "Defiance," the new film by Edward Zwick, is determined to prove that point. ¶ Though one of the standard clichés of the Holocaust is that Europe's Jews were exterminated without offering any resistance, historians have gradually uncovered evidence to the contrary, with the Bielskis being the prime case in point. ¶ Along with sibling Asael (Jamie Bell), the brothers not only formed a partisan unit that took on the Germans in the heavily wooded areas of what is now Belarus, they created a community in those woods that managed to keep 1,200 Jews alive until the war ended. ¶ Zwick, who wrote the screenplay with Clayton Frohman based on a book by Nechama Tec, has been trying to dramatize that story for at least a dozen years. As it appears on screen today, "Defiance" has some genuine strengths but also some weaker elements, and these opposing traits battle it out kind of the way the contentious Bielskis fought not only the Germans but each other.
The strongest part of "Defiance," frankly, might be those fraternal conflicts. Craig and Schreiber are two excellent actors, and both of them connect strongly with their roles as well as their fierce rivalry.
We meet all three brothers almost at the same moment in 1941, when they discover that the invading Germans have killed their parents and likely put a price on their own heads as well.
Passionately played by Schreiber in one of his strongest film roles, Zus is the wild hothead of the family, filled with a burning desire for "blood for blood" revenge as well as smoldering class resentments against the higher class Jews who looked down on the Bielskis until they needed their help.
His brother Tuvia, well-played by Craig, though capable of cold fury when it's called for, is much more of a stoic and closer to a natural commander than Zus. He also feels more of a responsibility than his furious sibling does to protect the helpless Jews who've escaped to the woods from urban ghettos.
Over the course of several projects, particularly the recent "Blood Diamond," Zwick has become quite proficient at crisply done action sequences, and the frequent fire fights and killings in "Defiance" have a powerful effect.
Whenever "Defiance" departs from the harsher realities of its story, however, when it leaves behind the particularity of its story and deals with the generic, it risks trafficking in the kind of earnestness and sentimentality it is better off without.
On the one hand, it is appropriate and likely true to life to give each of the Bielskis a beautiful "forest wife," the term used for the common law arrangements the war encouraged, and having fine actresses like Alexa Davalos, Mia Wasikowska and Iben Hjejle certainly helps.
On the other hand, the film has too much on-the-nose dialogue and wisecracking-through-tough-times sentiments, particularly in the dialogue between the religious Shimon Haretz (Allan Corduner) and the intellectual Isaac Malbin (Mark Feuerstein). It all feels like stuff we've heard before, and hearing it in the middle of a Belarus forest doesn't improve it enough.
But when "Defiance" returns to situations that could have come from no other film, it strengthens its hand. Being true to itself, just as the Bielskis were, is what this film does best.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/ne ... 3782.story
‘Defiance’ can’t decide what it wants to be
Rousing WWII action movie weighed down by Oscar-film pretensions
“Defiance” director Edward Zwick certainly isn’t afraid of archetypes: We know who the villain’s going to be (it’s the guy with the bad teeth), we know who’s going to marry the hero (it’s the one woman who looks stunning with apparently no makeup on) and we know who the hero is (it’s Daniel Craig as the movie’s one blond, blue-eyed Russian Jew).
It’s too bad that Zwick didn’t feel secure enough about what’s best about “Defiance” — the film’s action-packed scenes of armed resistance against Nazis fighting in Russia — and found himself trapped in another archetype, that of the serious, self-aware, Important Holocaust Drama.
Not that the horrors of the Final Solution don’t still resonate some 60 years after the end of World War II, but does every film on the topic have to be so crushingly earnest? For all its flaws — and there were a lot of them — didn’t “Life is Beautiful” open the door a little to alternate approaches to discussing this genocide on film?
Starting with a true story — which, in Hollywood terms, means that what you see on screen bears only fleeting resemblance to actual people and occurrences — “Defiance” tells the story of the Bielski brothers, who kept thousands of Jews alive in the woods of Belarussia while also getting into armed battles with the Nazi occupiers and even raiding their compounds.
Besides World War II itself, the other big conflict being fought out in “Defiance” is the difference of opinion between the brothers: Tuvia (Craig), the oldest, is more concerned with keeping their cadre alive, even though it means taking care of children and the elderly, while hot-headed second brother Zus (Liev Schreiber) wants to join up with the Red Army to kill more Germans.
The taut action sequences, the interplay between Craig and Schreiber and Jamie Bell (as younger brother Asael), and Zus’ prickly relationship with his comrades in the notoriously anti-Semitic Russian Army all crackle, and they point to what could have been an immensely satisfying, “Great Escape” kind of adventure.
But then there’s all the philosophizing and the breast-beating and the “God will save us!” stuff that’s been handled frequently and far more interestingly in any number of other Holocaust movies. In “Defiance,” it just feels tacked on, as though making “just” an action movie about Jews in this period of history were somehow glib or heretical
Nonetheless, “Defiance” is frequently engaging, from its stellar cast (Mark Feuerstein and the great Allan Corduner are a kick as a pair of bickering intellectuals) to its gripping suspense. It’s a shame that Zwick and his co-scenarist Clayton Frohman, adapting the book by Nechama Tec, seem — much like Asael in the film — to be torn between two rival agendas.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28437482/
Defiant, but Oddly Lacking
Review By David Kempler
2.5/4
For the past few months I have been seeing a trailer for "Defiance." It is possible that I have watched it more than ten times. With each viewing, I assumed that a very powerful Oscar contender was about to be unfurled upon the viewing public. I finally saw the actual film. It was a letdown. This does not mean it is a bad film. Far from it. But there is something missing that prevents it from being an extraordinary film. I'm not certain what is holding it back, although I have a few theories.
"Defiance" is based on a true story about four Jewish brothers from West Belarus in Poland who escape from the Nazis after their family is murdered. Instead of fleeing, they decide to fight back. Through fate, they also take on the role of protector to other Jews, rescuing over 1,200 from the ghettos in Poland. The film, directed by Edward Zwick ("Blood Diamond") is an adaptation of Nechama Tec's "Defiance: The Bielski Partisans." In the book, pacifist and non-militant Polish Jews come together and train for military duty in order to oppose the German and Russian occupation of their homeland.
Tuvia Bielski (Daniel Craig) and his brother Zus (Liev Schreiber) are the two leaders of the movement. Tuvia is primarily concerned with hiding people in the woods and keeping them safe from invading German forces, while Zus is more inclined toward seeking revenge for his family's massacre, joining up with Russian freedom fighters. This causes a rift between the two Bielski brothers but it is a rift that is obviously repairable.
"Defiance" is a great story, mostly because it is true. Unfortunately, this filmed version of the events is lacking in oomph. It feels scripted, invoking an emotional reaction from its audience based on obvious cues rather than allowing reactions to flow naturally from the depicted events.
Craig does his usual fine job but Schreiber left me cold in his portrayal of Zus. To be fair, I am not a huge Schreiber fan, so there may be some prejudicial bias coloring my appraisal. But even if I can get past that, I can't get past that the film feels artificial, even though it is based on truth. I don't think the movie-going public will be all that disappointed with "Defiance" but I do think that my initial guess that this would be a huge Oscar contender was dead wrong.
http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/Defiance.shtml
Poor act of 'Defiance': Film fails to do justice to an important story
by Stephen Whitty/The Star-Ledger
Victims don't often star in their own histories.
Even when they've survived the most horrible oppressions, they don't write the first texts. It's the proud liberators who do that -- and sometimes, unwittingly, victimize them a second time. Because not every suffering minority was waiting, passively, to be saved. Often they've been fighting for themselves all along.
Like the Jews of "Defiance."
There have been many movies about the Holocaust -- half-a-dozen, it seems, in just the past two months. But this film, based on a true story, isn't about the ghetto but the forests. About the Jews who tore off their yellow stars and picked up guns, and made their own justice.
It's an unusual and important story. Which makes it even sadder that it's not better told.
Watching the movie you realize there's a precedent here, and a pretty ambitious one: "Spartacus." There's something of Kirk Douglas in the clenched physicality of Daniel Craig, particularly as he slowly builds his little community of outcasts in the woods -- even mildly mocking the useless intellectuals who join them.
The difference, though, is that "Spartacus" was written by a witty leftist, Dalton Trumbo, who really believed in its ideals of social revolution; it was directed by a genuine genius, Stanley Kubrick, who had both a soaring visual sense and just enough weary misanthropy to balance Trumbo's soaring inspiration.
And "Defiance" is co-written and directed by Edward Zwick.
Zwick is a pleasant man, and probably a decent one; he named his company Bedford Falls, after the sweet town of "It's a Wonderful Life," and his projects range from TV's "thirtysomething" to the Oscar-winning "Glory." But too many of his pictures are pat and politically predictable. Movies like "Blood Diamond" and "The Last Samurai" take all the "right" stands, but where's the pulse of drama? The shock of art?
"Defiance" has a sturdy, based-on-fact story, as three brothers, fleeing the Nazi liquidation of their village, take to the Byelorussian woods. Eventually they're joined by other refugees, some with guns, and a debate ensues: Should their priority be survival, or resistance? One brother opts for the first, building a sort of ever-traveling shtetl; the other chooses the second, joining up with a straggling Red Army squadron.
Craig and Liev Schreiber are the brothers, and although they're miscast -- they're the least likely fraternal pair since Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson in "The Darjeeling Limited" -- they're both fine actors. Yet Zwick's script (co-written with Clayton Frohman) seems, even if based on fact, to be too heavily contrived. The brother's disagreement over tactics seems more a function of the plot than philosophy, their reunion a just-in-time Hollywood ending.
The idea of refugees taking to the forest and living off the land (and wealthy landowners) has real old-movie appeal; it's like Robin Hood and his Merry Menschen. But Zwick's movie never moves behind those cliches. The villain among them has bad teeth while the women remain nicely groomed; Craig's wooden hovel, somehow, comes complete with glass windows (and fire-lit love scene). Supporting characters feel like kvetching outcasts from Anatevka.
For all his armchair humanism, Zwick has always had skill with action sequences; an early scene, when Craig goes to confront the men who killed his family, has a rough power to it, and a final battle against the German army is full of excitement. And the characters' proactive heroism is an important corrective (as, in its own way, was "Munich") to movies about victimized Jews, dependent on righteous gentiles. Many fought back themselves, and this is one of the stories.
It's just a shame it wasn't told in a faster, fresher and more surprising way.
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/inde ... to_an.html