Defiance

The story that director, Edward Zwick is in such a rush to get to is actually well worth telling, just not worth the steps he took to get there. By reducing the holocaust to an opening credits montage so that the audience is brought up to speed is such an offensive trivialization of a mind-blowing tragedy that it is a miracle that DEFIANCE ever manages to recover from its first few moments.

Even Defiance looks frothily entertaining by comparison, despite its grim wartime setting and eye-opening anti-Nazi narrative. Reliable director Ed Zwick bucks the Hollywood cliche with this "true life" tale of the Bielski Partisans, Jewish resistance fighters waging battle from encampments in the Belarussian forests while sheltering more than a thousand refugees. Much of the movie is fairly straight action fare, with Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell wrestling accents and weaponry. Presumably Zwick decided that this little-known tale required mainstream treatment to maximise its audience. The result is a strange, sporadically exciting mix of the worthy and the well-worn.

Zwick’s film is absolutely brilliant (and horrible) about the brute business of survival. There are elderly men, women and children who cling to these unruly but idealistic heroes like leeches. The winter bites. Food runs out. The tensions between the increasingly ruthless brothers become toxic. A rival tribe of Russian mercenaries pour scorn on this Jewish tribe.

What’s impressive about the film is the sense of ensemble. Craig plays the conflicted leader, Tuvia Bielski, with his usual chilly charisma. The attacks on his decisions and confidence are orchestrated silently and subtly by Schreiber’s bloodythirsty middle brother, Zus. But it is the youngest brother, Asael, played by Jamie Bell, who provides the eyes and ears of the story.

What’s unique about the film is that it celebrates a lost chapter of Jewish resistance. The worry is how fiercely Zwick’s film clings to tried and tested Hollywood staples. The film seems to be far more infatuated with the romantic softening of a hard man, Craig — who is nursed back from certain death by the shapely Alexa Davelos — than it is with the historical facts.

I can understand why the film demands to be treated with the utmost respect. It is haunting, impressive and moving. But ultimately it looks, smells and feels too familiar.