Fact-based WWII drama reaps biblical references
The best tough-guy line in "Defiance" can't match Clint Eastwood's "Get off my lawn!" from "Gran Torino," but it'll do to kick-start this review.
A Russian resistance fighter in Eastern Europe during World War II is astonished to see Jews taking up arms against the Nazis.
"Jews don't fight," he says.
"These Jews do," replies Zus Bielski.
Zus, the surliest tough guy ever played by Liev Schreiber, is one of the three Bielski brothers whose relatively low-profile contributions to Jewish history serve as the crux for the story in "Defiance."
As directed by Chicago's own Edward Zwick - from Chicagoan Clay Frohman's screenplay - "Defiance" mixes a fact-based event with biblical flourishes: two brothers at odds with each other, and a story where refugees affect a seemingly impossible escape through a large body of water, here, a swamp instead of a sea.
In 1941, a Nazi rampage kills Zus' parents, prompting the three brothers to come together. Tuvia (played by 007 star Daniel Craig) and the much younger Asael (Jamie Bell) join Zus to see what they can do to protect themselves.
Zus wants to take up weapons against the Nazis and the local citizens who helped them hunt and kill Jews. But Tuvia, even though he early on greases the local police chief and his two sons for murdering his dad and mom, believes saving the Jewish community is a higher priority.
"Our revenge," Tuvia announces, "is to live!"
But disgruntled realist Zus believes that the best revenge is simply revenge.
As the Nazis swarm into the region, the Bielski brothers become the de facto leaders of a mass exodus of Jews. They wind up in the deep recesses of the woods that the Bielskis have known since their youth.
There, the brothers set up a primitive community hidden from the eyes of Hitler's troops. They try to replicate normalcy. They take "forest wives" and "forest husbands" in this new, tiny world.
But the Spartan environment breeds hunger and dissatisfaction. Some of the men challenge Tuvia's leadership. Zus becomes so disenchanted with his brother's optimism that he breaks from the group and forms his own squad to fight with the Russians.
"We may be hunted like animals, but we will not become animals!" Tuvia proclaims. Yet, "Defiance" has a frightening "Lord of the Flies" quality that undermines his very words.
"Defiance" has all the hallmarks of a potential epic. Cinematographer Eduardo Serra's crisp, crackling imagery gives the story a wonderfully textured patina of cold and wet, and his sunless scenes look as if they've been painted on black canvas in frigid hues of gray, blue and green.
James Newton Howard's all-string instrumental score is also a bonus, adding sorrow and angst to underscore the severity of the time.
Yet, the longer the story plays, the more generic it becomes, until the ending, which could have been lifted from a routine 1950s western.
Although Craig and Schreiber are well-cast, Tuvia and Zus don't have much of a relationship beyond their differing priorities. Bell's role as Asael is woefully underused, except to insert an obligatory romantic subplot.
<p class="factboxheadblack">"Defiance"</p> <p class="News">Two and a half stars</p> <p class="News"><b>Starring:</b> Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Alexa Davalos</p> <p class="News"><b>Directed by:</b> Edward Zwick</p> <p class="News"><b>Other:</b> A Paramount Vantage release. Rated R for language, violence. 129 minutes</p>