Preview: Defiance

Gritty, true life World War II adventure opens nationwide today.

A lot has been made about the surfeit of movies dealing with Nazis and their evil the last few months, including the Oscar-baiting The Reader and the not-quite-comeback Tom Cruise suspenser Valkyrie. The Viggo Mortensen-led Good also seemingly came and went pretty quickly. Despite the glut, or perhaps because of it, Defiance receives its nationwide release in the middle of January. That’s a shame, because it looks ready to tear those other films a new one.

Directed by Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond) and based on a true story, the film tells the story of the Bielski brothers, Polish Jews who evaded capture during the 1941 Nazi invasion of that country and fled east into the Naliboki Forest (in what is today part of Western Belarus). Often working with irregular Soviet guerrillas soldiers, the brothers and their followers lived in crude bunkers while helping more than 1,200 people (mostly women and children) get to safety and killing almost 400 enemy soldiers, often conducting daring flights through the forest to escape capture or lead others to shelter. In fact, they were never caught: in 1944 the brothers led their refugees out of the forest and towards freedom. Two of the brothers eventually emigrated to the United States; another joined the Soviet military and was killed in the last weeks of the war.

Defiance the film, based on a book by Holocaust scholar Nechama Tec, centers on the three oldest brothers, played by Daniel Craig (Quantum of Solace), Liev Shreiber (The Manchurian Candidate) and Jamie Bell (Flags of Our Fathers). Craig plays the eldest brother Tuvia, a veteran of the Polish army and the group’s leader; Shreiber plays Zus, a left-leaning firebrand ready to dole out bloody vengeance. Also appearing are Alexa Davalos (Feast of Love) and Mia Wasilkowska (HBO’s In Treatment) as Tevia and Asael’s love interests.

With films such as Glory, The Last Samurai, and Legends of the Fall, Zwick has made a career of directing films about war that provoke the viewer’s brain more than the average 90 minute explosion montage but that nevertheless don’t get so weighty that the ideas distract from the action taking place. In other words, if there’s such a thing as a thinking man’s action director, Zwick is probably the guy, and he’s reportedly spent a dozen years getting this story onscreen. Nevertheless, accusations of sweeping creative license and controversy about the brothers have already been leveled against the script, including allegations that the real-life Bielskis participated in a Soviet Partisan-led massacre of more than 120 Polish citizens. (Bielski family members vehemently deny the brothers’ participation.) It’s also worth noting that in actuality Asael Bielski (played by the 23-year old Bell) was the second oldest son, not Zus.

But for all that probably no one goes to a Hollywood action film expecting complete veracity. The film casts deserving light on a little-known episode of the war whose more Western parts are possibly becoming a little too celebrated. Namely, that the Jewish people fought back, and fought valiantly, against the Nazi onslaught.  

We’ll have our review Monday. Have a good weekend.

- Michael Kabel

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