Defiance review

After watching “Defiance”, I now know why the movie failed. It’s the most rushed World War II movie about the Holocaust I have ever seen. It’s runtime is two hours and seventeen minutes, which just wasn’t enough time to tell this story.

The movie is about four Belorussian Jewish brothers, the Bielskis, that create a village in the forest in order to hide from the invading Nazis. They are led by Tuvia, played by Daniel Craig, who desperately tries to escape Bond…and fails. Two other brothers, played by Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell, are played much better and I liked them more than Craig, who is the star of the film.

The Bielski story is definitely an interesting one, but it seems to have needed more time and depth. For example, we learn that a central characters wife was killed a mere twenty minutes into the movie, which doesn’t resonate emotionally because there wasn’t enough time to connect with these characters yet. The action pieces aren’t that great either, which is surprising coming from Edward Zwick, who directed “Glory” and “The Last Samurai”.