Defiance

I'm reluctant to give a lower rating to a film with a Jewish pogrom theme (this dark side of human history needs to be remembered, and I'm glad for any such film), but what am I left with when Zwick's auteurist approach managed to kill even such a strong subject? I'm thinking in particular of the typical Hollywood trademark "last minute", here represented by the final redemptive attack on the tank, which sent the whole experience reliably into a tailspin. For God's sake, is there anyone who still enjoys this tired and abused cliché? Hollywood playing soldier again, don't give me the "true story" claim! And Zwick needs to get his ass spanked with a seven-armed candlestick. The actors, the music and the atmosphere of the Belarusian forests (or Lithuanian forests, where the film was shot) are almost flawless. (31/01/2009)

Defiance is a pretty and good movie, but it could have been beautiful and excellent. Subject matter such as this is simply not served well by the simplified American view neatly dividing everyone into good and bad, and always supplying a dramatic last-minute rescue. The thing that I liked in Edward Zwick’s “fairytale-like” The Last Samurai cannot work in a drama about persecuted Jews. This is yet another vain attempt on the director’s part to ingratiate himself with the Academy. The actors and James Newton Howard are excellent, even though the latter steals from his own score for The Village. (19/04/2009)

This film is not as good as The Last Samurai... And I actually liked Blood Diamond a little more... But as far as "new" war movies go, it's definitely above average. Among other things, I realized that I must be a person who likes kitsch - the cinematography and the shots of the forests, which were criticized by some, are, in my opinion, absolutely breathtaking and the finale in the meadow took my breath away, although I was expecting it (and to be a bit more epic). Otherwise the actors (all the brothers) are exemplary (only Schreiber could have been given a bit more space), and I also liked the character of the Jewish teacher. And the action? Let Annaud can get out of here with what he does in Enemy at the Gates! Here you can see the air raid the way it should be. Three and three-quarters. (21/04/2009)

Typical Zwick. In this case, that’s a bad thing. A heroic story about an unreal partisan adventure with a biblical parallel in the second plan. It’s built on the old and worn out "based on a true story" model, and what it needed was a good dose of rawness and not kitschy images of the Belarusian forest. Zwick's characters escape, which, assuming the story is based on them, is a major problem that even top actors can't dig him out of. What it lacks is any fatefulness when the difficult decisions are made (and the script offers plenty of them), which is replaced by piecing together a clichéd puzzle from pieces long ago grasped elsewhere. I didn't care that it (apparently) really happened because it is served in the form of a standard movie to satisfy sentimental viewers. The first half of it pissed me off, and by the second half, I had completely checked out. However, I do believe that in the final showdown on the meadow, some people had to give it a standing ovation. I, on the other hand, wanted to kick Zwick in the balls. (21/01/2009)

A modern-day Moses performed by an actor who would score about a hundred and ten percent on the “looks like an Arian" scale, walks around the woods for two and a quarter hours, all the time babbling away in dumb English with an “Eastern Bloc" accent. And sometimes he looks so content strolling through those woods that you get the urge to switch off the TV and go take a walk in real-life woods. However, it does have the advantage that when they are casting the main protagonist for a remake of Rambo, Liev Schreiber is the obvious choice. That guy grows with every movie he makes. (06/07/2009)