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Defiance
During 1942 in the Nazi occupied Western
Soviet Union, the Germans have been hunting down the Jewish residents
and killing most, with a few being keeps and forced into slave labour.
When sitting and waiting for death becomes too much for Russians Jews,
the Bielski bothers, they make a run for the forests surrounding the
area, a forest that they know extremely well. Once inside they encounter
many other refugees who escaped the Germans clutches and together they
set up a camp vowing to bring revenge on the German strong hold. As time
goes by, the camp, now run by the two main brothers Tuvia (Daniel Craig)
and Zus (Liev Schreiber), has become somewhat infamous, along with the
two brothers and is restoring hope to the people as well as gathering a
expanding population of refugees.
With a small population functioning under the two brothers command, the
cracks in their relationship begin to expose. The day to day dramas of
depleting food supplies, the on coming winter, and the constant threat
of the Nazis, it is a constant fight to survive.
This movie took me by surprise, having never read the original text, a
book by Nechama Tec, I was sure that it would be another WWII survival
movie full of blazing gun battles and bullets shaving faces, this
couldn't be further from the truth however. Defiance is a intellectual
survival movie, combining the battles of family hardship, immense
pressure, and general survival. Daniel Craig & Liev Schreiber both do a
fantastic European accent and it's their chemistry as the battling
brothers that keep the drama at its peak. The change of seeing the
Jewish stance as opposed to Britain/American rescue is also a pleasant
change.
There is every element needed here for the making of a great movie, but
it still doesn't come together here. The cinematography is fantastic,
and the editing and musical score of Joshua Bell add a strong depth to
each scene. However, director Edward Zwick fails to continue the emotion
long enough for you to be fully immersed in the story. There are some
enrapturing scenes here, but in between those scenes are about four or
five others that you simply don't care about. This really ruins the
cinematic experience. It's certainly not a good film, but it's also far
from bad.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Theatrical Trailer |
