Defiance
by Matthew Rodgers
Defiance is a hard film to criticise as it deals with the very human subject of the Holocaust and its intentions are truly admirable, however, the execution renders this exceptional story interminably dull, and with the superb cast and a director who seemingly wrote the big book of cinema battles with The Last Samurai and Glory it only adds to the underwhelming outcome.
Depicting the true tale of three Jewish brothers – Tuvia, Zus, and Asael Bielski (Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, and Jamie Bell) - who escape Nazi occupied Poland and seeks refuge in a Belarusian forest. There they are joined by Russian resistance fighters and countless refugees from nearby towns decimated by death police, and assemble a village community full of warring factions, food shortages, death and disease.
Defiance is a bit of a struggle, not solely because of the tough topic, it’s mainly down to the surprisingly amateurish construction of proceedings. Edward Zwick should be able to make this in his sleep, instead he utilises a join-the-dots narrative thread that sees the brothers arguing about the intake of refugees, only for the next scene to feature a fresh group trundle into the camp. Similarly a discussion about needing medicine prompts a response along the lines of “wasn’t that police station that we were about to raid full of just the medicine we require?”, worried that its audience may nod-off due to the plodding nature of the plot, Defiance is given very little room to breathe.
The action is also highly stilted, the aforementioned raid is a pivotal scene but Zwick shoots it in a hazy slow motion that’s devoid of any tension and suspense, add to that the fact that Schreiber’s character appears to get shot a number of times but nothing is made of this, its laughably bad continuity. Even the larger scale set-pieces pale in comparison to say, Band of Brothers, and it’s a shame that Defiance exists in an already crowded sub-genre of war/holocaust movies otherwise it wouldn’t seem so tired. Additionally, if this review seems to be focusing on the negative aspects of a movie with a deeply tragic subject matter, don’t mistake sombre for dull, that’s the mistake Zwick makes.
Questions will asked as to how the camp remains a secret for so long too, constantly arguing, having weddings and generally making a noise its amazing that in the limited geographical scope the film creates, that the Nazi’s don’t look over the nearest hedge and find a small Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves recreation party going on. It simply removes and realism from the movie.
In amongst the slapdash filmmaking are some performances that whilst nowhere near brilliant manage to bring some credibility to a film straining for it. Craig, despite a Belorussian Braveheart moment makes a convincing foil to Scheibers hot-headed, war hungry Zus, their brothers at war-within-war is one of the few intriguing hooks. Jamie Bell is given very little to do but look glum and act out a few war movie clichés, he does it well though.
No doubt there is an interesting story packed with plenty of emotion and its very telling that the most moving scenes are the true life summaries prior to the end credits, its just a shame the Defiance is not that story.
