Defiance (15.)
Directed by Ed Zwick.
Starring Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Allan Corduner, Alexa Davalos. 137 minutes.
Ed Zwick is a director who specialises in earnest, plodding war movies. Having worked his way through Issues like black soldiers in the Civil War, blood diamonds and terrorism there’s an inevitability in him working his way up to a Holocaust movie, the surprise is that he’s turned it into a camping trip.
After the Nazis arrive in Belarus in 1941 the three Bielski brothers take to the woods to escape after their family are killed. Soon though they find themselves being joined by more and refugees from massacres of Jews and Tuvia Bielski (Craig) emerges as the leader and something of Schindler figure.
It’s an extraordinary unbelievable true story and that’s exactly how Zwick presents it – as unbelievable. At one point they decide to liberate Jews from a nearby ghetto. The extraordinary feat of liberating seemingly hundreds of people from Nazi control ought to be a gripping moment but the whole thing lasts about three minutes on screen and half of that is discussing the rights and wrongs of escaping. Otherwise it’s just a matter of two of them hopping over the wall, little chat with the elders of the group and then popping out through a big hole in the wall; Nazis, none the wiser.
Zwick trick is to find important issues or compelling true stories and just film in the dullest least imaginative way possible. It’s an important issues or a compelling true stories - therefore it must be a good film. He tells his stories in a similar way; this is an important moral dilemma, be engrossed.
Well I think there’s a little more to it than that something more than exposition dialogue and actors doing Russian accents. There’s no way round it, this is incredible dull, plodding non event and watching this you’d never believe Craig was anything special. Which is unforgivable because what actually happened must have been an incredible story. 135 mins is hardly epic but this thing drags along like its Australia and a day. They're Earnest, and by far the slowest resistance group in the East.
Directed by Ed Zwick.
Starring Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Allan Corduner, Alexa Davalos. 137 minutes.
Ed Zwick is a director who specialises in earnest, plodding war movies. Having worked his way through Issues like black soldiers in the Civil War, blood diamonds and terrorism there’s an inevitability in him working his way up to a Holocaust movie, the surprise is that he’s turned it into a camping trip.
After the Nazis arrive in Belarus in 1941 the three Bielski brothers take to the woods to escape after their family are killed. Soon though they find themselves being joined by more and refugees from massacres of Jews and Tuvia Bielski (Craig) emerges as the leader and something of Schindler figure.
It’s an extraordinary unbelievable true story and that’s exactly how Zwick presents it – as unbelievable. At one point they decide to liberate Jews from a nearby ghetto. The extraordinary feat of liberating seemingly hundreds of people from Nazi control ought to be a gripping moment but the whole thing lasts about three minutes on screen and half of that is discussing the rights and wrongs of escaping. Otherwise it’s just a matter of two of them hopping over the wall, little chat with the elders of the group and then popping out through a big hole in the wall; Nazis, none the wiser.
Zwick trick is to find important issues or compelling true stories and just film in the dullest least imaginative way possible. It’s an important issues or a compelling true stories - therefore it must be a good film. He tells his stories in a similar way; this is an important moral dilemma, be engrossed.
Well I think there’s a little more to it than that something more than exposition dialogue and actors doing Russian accents. There’s no way round it, this is incredible dull, plodding non event and watching this you’d never believe Craig was anything special. Which is unforgivable because what actually happened must have been an incredible story. 135 mins is hardly epic but this thing drags along like its Australia and a day. They're Earnest, and by far the slowest resistance group in the East.
