Movie Review - 'Defiance'

Defiance Starring Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, and Jamie Bell Directed by Edward Zwick Rated R

Between 1941 and 1944, Tuvia Bielski and his brothers built the largest single civilian resistance movement against the Nazis, protecting some 1,200 Jews in the forests of Belarus. The story is so remarkable that a movie can hardly do it justice. Because the film has a little over two hours to prove its case, you can only get an approximation of how the Bielski partisans survived, but it's impossible to really absorb just how this all came together against unbelievable odds. That is not a criticism of Defiance in any way, but a realization of just how unique this journey is. Director Edward Zwick (The Last Samurai) has chosen to focus primarily on the lives of the three Bielski brothers, Tuvia (Daniel Craig), Zus (Liev Schreiber), and Asael (Jamie Bell), as men who initially wanted to save themselves from the Nazis but wound up – directly or indirectly - saving thousands of lives and aiding the Russian army against Germany at a crucial time in the war. Initially, the Bielskis were doing what anyone in their situation would do. They fled. Knowing what the German army was up to, the only place you couldn't be found easily was in the woods, so the Bielskis wound up at the same place, although they arrived separately. Soon, they were joined by dozens of people they didn't know, all looking for shelter, safety, heat, and food, four things not easy to find in the Belarusian woods in the winter. Slowly, however, the group of refugees began building a life while waiting for the end of the Nazi insanity. There were skirmishes, and when there were, the Bielski partisans would have to become nomads, finding a new place to settle, hidden from the rest of the world. There are some elements of Defiance that don’t work as well as others. Zwick builds in some romantic subplots that very well might have existed but don’t seem terribly crucial. There’s no faulting the two main performances by Schreiber and Craig, however. James Bond notwithstanding, Craig has Richard Burton’s talent in the frame of an action hero, and he’s quite powerful as a man who leads simply because there needs to be a leader. Schreiber has never received the attention he deserves, but here he effectively plays a man torn between fighting the good fight and fighting the real fight, even though the justification for each is the same. To its credit, Defiance doesn’t look for the silver lining. This is a tough, tough story, but one that we are all better for having heard.

Comments

[Todd Lee]

The Bielski brothers were the real stuff. My hat's off to a movie that offers a decent portrayal of what those men and the people with them endured at a time of great evil in the world. Beats most of the crap coming out of Hollywood these days.

[Nick]

Brilliant movie, and should be much more creditted than it is. It may not have the writing that Schindler's List had, but the story is every bit as moving. Well Done.

[LaLa DeeDah]

It was never really told what happened to the 4th Brother, the youngest. What happened to him?

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