Defiance
Note: I would like to express my profound gratitude for my father's positive influence on this review. While our back-and-forth banter regarding every movie we see has continually inspired me to dig deeper into my knowledge and understanding of film criticism, this particular review owes a chunk of its flavour to my father's hilarious and insightful statements about this silly movie. I hope you enjoy the review and know that it is a product of two men spilling their intertwined thoughts onto the floor.
As cinematic subject matter, the Holocaust is currently being put through the dramatic ringer, with The Reader recently exploiting the historic tragedy for awards attention and now Defiance using it as a springboard for a messy marriage of loud action sequences and weepy clichéd nonsense. The Holocaust can certainly be used as a compelling backdrop for a story, but giving it such a transparent treatment is frustrating and reeks of laziness. Defiance is an old-fashioned thrill ride that wants to revolve around a relatable dramatic axis, but the movie is never thrilling nor moving. It is instead a clumsy and dull telling of a true story that requires an inspired narrative direction in order to work on the big screen. With repetitive director Ed Zwick at the helm, this movie falls flat in nearly every frame, as the characters simply go through the motions in a painfully predictable manner.
Defiance is the story of three Jewish brothers who fled into the forest when Nazi forces invaded their home town in Belorussia in 1941. Unable to return to their homes with the Nazis occupying the area, the brothers decide to make a new home in their dense forest surroundings. Over time, they begin ambushing Nazi soldiers and stealing their weapons and ammunition in order to defend their territory. Word spreads about the heroic Bielski brothers and other persecuted Jews begin to take refuge in the forest camp. Eventually, they transform from a small group huddled in the woods into a working community with more than a thousand people interacting and fighting for their lives.
According to the movie's marketing materials, this is "the greatest story you've never heard" and, while it is an emotionally potent piece of history, the story has been awkwardly translated to the screen. Too often do filmmakers use the "true story" label as a crutch, relying on the biographical elements of the story to lend the movie a sense of authenticity. That is certainly the case with Defiance, a movie so densely packed with stereotypes and clichés that it feels more recycled than real.
Zwick has built an entire career around telling stories about heroic people facing oppression in the midst of a bloody conflict. His past work includes Glory, Legends of the Fall, The Last Samurai, and Blood Diamond. He explores the same few themes with each movie (emotional and psychological maturity in the face of a crisis, cultural awareness, and the importance of absolutely kicking the crap out of your enemies), but often his old-fashioned directorial approach provides the movie with an attitude and focus that befits the material. But as is the case with the silly and unconvincing Tom Cruise vehicle The Last Samurai, Defiance is a prime example of Zwick's narrative sensibilities transforming a serious story into a laughable affair.
Perhaps the most glaring problem with Defiance is that it doesn't know what kind of movie it wants to be. Is it a pumped up action movie or a sweeping melodrama? In its own way, the movie is both, a strange combination that refuses to mesh into a singular vision. The movie continually divides its attention between drama and action, but each of these different approaches pull the movie's pace and tone in opposite directions. Instead of meeting in the middle, they work against each other, causing the movie to have a disjointed feel. In attempting to provide an emotional punch and an explosive thrill, Defiance limps along and fails on both accounts. It's like Schindler's List meets Die Hard, with none of the dramatic impact or hearty adrenaline that makes those two movies work so well.
Looking back at many of his previous movies, one of Zwick's most obvious strengths is his ability to pull together an impressive cast. With Defiance, Zwick has once again compiled a group of promising actors, casting talented actors Daniel Craig, Liev Schrieber, and Jamie Bell as the three Bielski brothers. But just as Tom Cruise felt completely out of place in The Last Samurai (beyond the necessities of the fish-out-of-water storyline), Craig, Schrieber, and Bell all look bored and confused for the entirety of the movie. Their accents are fine and Craig's brawny presence is in full swaggering mode, but their performances never match the gravity of the situation.
A subject as serious and heartbreaking as the Holocaust deserves more than this. Constructing a stale movie and stuffing it with contrived conflict (with sibling rivalries and nasty bullies in the camp, it's not just the Nazis that get everyone so riled up in this movie) is frustrating and wholly unnecessary. Even without the backdrop of the Holocaust, Defiance is still just another "underdogs blowing up bad guys" movie that feels about as refreshing as mouldy bread.
When all of the characters feel like a list of obvious traits and stereotypes, there is no connection to the story and all of the Holocaust references in the world cannot pull it back from the brink of emotional obscurity. Filmmakers like Zwick should think twice about digging through graves in an attempt to mask their lazy and depleting skills. There is no substitute for telling a great story populated with believable characters who seem to exist outside the confines of the frame. Relying on historical tragedies to do the dramatic heavy lifting is inexcusable. Someone should tell Zwick that his shtick is getting old.
