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Other than Sir Sean, none of the actors who have played James Bond 007 have really managed to carve out a niche for themselves outside of the indomitable franchise (although Pierce Brosnan is trying). It seems, though, that given his obvious talent, Daniel Craig has a better chance than most of his predecessors at having a substantial career once he vacates Bond's shoes. Defiance, being a film about a Serious Issue of Historical Importance, gives him an opportunity to stretch his acting muscles between superspy outings and Craig can emerge from it with his head held high. He delivers a strong, intense performance, believably hitting all the required emotional notes. His on-screen brothers, Liev Schreiber (who is surely only waiting for that one breakout performance before he becomes a well-known name - he'll next be seen in Wolverine) and the ever-watchable Jamie Bell, also both acquit themselves well. Unfortunately, despite the extraordinary - and extraordinarily unknown - true story being recounted, it mostly comes across overwhelmingly average.
This is an Edward Zwick film, and with that tag you know what you're getting: a film about a weighty issue that is well-made and contains some competently constructed action scenes but perhaps has a slight unwelcome air of self-importance. Zwick has made some very good films - Glory particularly, and The Last Samurai is also a personal favourite - but despite his attempts to distance himself from the typical Hollywood action output, his films can tend to have an attractive layer of authentic-seeming sheen that conceals a lack of depth beneath the surface. Defiance is one such example of this tendency. It is an account of the little-known Jewish resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Belorussia, in which a substantial and ever-growing Jewish community subsisted by living in the dense forest and carrying out guerrilla attacks on the occupying German forces. The story has never been told on screen before, and it's easy to see the attraction for the director, but he fails to quite do it justice.
There probably is a great film to be made from Nechama Tec's book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, but despite the clear good intentions by all involved, Edward Zwick's adaptation rarely rises above run-of-the-mill. Partly that is due to simple over-familiarity; although this specific tale is new to cinema screens, the way the events are told just feels like a merely satisfactory patchwork of previous films. Everything is resoundingly predictable - from the portrayal of every Nazi as a faceless brute to the last-gasp "surprise" rescue when all seems lost - and with a film that runs well over two hours the constant repetition of locations and events becomes tedious. Perhaps some sort of framing structure would have proved advantageous to break up the monotony. Most head-scratching of all, in spite of the length of the film, it ends two years before the war is over, leaving us just with a coda saying that by war's end 1200 people had survived in the forest. It would have been nice to see it.
The summary
A well-meaning but overly worthy retelling of a true story that deserves better film treatment. Defiance is never terrible, just utterly unexceptional.
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