The thing I liked most about Valkyrie was that they left everything consistent. Everyone spoke in English with their native accents because technically they're all speaking the same language. Some had a beef, I didn't. So what happens when there's more than one lingua going around? Defiance handled this amiably by having Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber make even more heterosexual women melt in their seats by speaking actual Russian in addition to their accented English that represented Yiddish.
What bothered me most while watching it was that I didn't feel riveted to my seat at all. Don't get me wrong, I was interested the whole time. I was there for it, but I couldn't help but feel like I'd felt the same types of beats in the same places before. If the pace hadn't clipped along the way it did, it would have lost me, but not for lack on interest. I have to blame any lack of engagement on my part on the glut of WWII/Holocaust movies that hit screens each year. I'm not asking for less of them, but could someone dedicate himself to watching only those movies and tell me which ones to see first so I don't get burned out?
The story of the Bielski Brothers is an important one, and I'm surprised it took until now to do a movie. The Nazis invaded and killed their family, and these farmers became reluctant saviors of over 1200 Jews. I guess that's the thing: you go in by virtue of advertising knowing they save a ton of people. It's good to learn about, and boy is it compelling with respect to the acting on display. They gave Daniel Craig something to really sink into emotionally in contrast to Bond, Liev Schreiber got to be a goddamn action hero (Wolverine doesn't count), and Jamie Bell really had a chance to bridge the gap between "young" and "adult" for once.
This will turn into a laundry list if I mention every last amazing blink-and-miss female performance in this thing. I'll say this: watch for the lady who pleads for death and keep in mind she was freshly off playing Lady MacBeth in Lithuania's National Theatre Company. She's in the movie for about a minute and a half. This is also likely the first place people will see the work of Mia Wasikowska, who Tim Burton's made famous by casting as Alice. She'll be in Amelia later this year and festival circuit-goers could have seen her in That Evening Sun.
I've said my fair share of snarky things about Zwick's work, but I've always liked Glory, melodrama and all. Dances With Samurai was fine in parts, and I skipped Blood Diamond entirely. I have some things to say about The Siege later today. I feel quite strongly that Zwick's career has been building to no project more perfect for him than this one. I've got no real vested interest in him or the material professionally or culturally beyond your average moviegoer, and I'm no easy lay. Zwick made the best film out of this material that could have been made. Anyone who disagrees with me on that point probably wishes they had directed it themselves and thrown in some more explosions or giant robots or didactic narration or something.
That being said, Defiance falls into a similar potential trap as Valkyrie for over-analytical mass movie-consumers like movie bloggers: it's technically a really awesome history lesson. If The History Channel made dramatized "re-enactment" specials this good, I'd watch The History Channel. I know a number of bloggers I read tossed their review discs on while doing something else and just three seconds into the opening were tweeting about how bored they were with it. I think people who are actively interested in seeing the movie will enjoy it a lot and come away wanting to learn more. Those of us devouring movies buffet-style are more prone to giving this a pass. I'm glad I gave it a chance.
The extras (all HD) on the Blu-ray include Defiance: Return to the Forest [26:05], which is your run-of-the-mill Behind the Scenes thing; Children of the Otriad [13:42], where the children of the Bielskis and their descendants talk about how they learned pieces of the story growing up; and Scoring Defiance [7:00], which is pretty self-explanatory. Also included is a short series of photos taken of the remaining Bielski Partisan Survivors [1:58] by director Zwick. I listened to the entire commentary, which Zwick flies solo on, and it's a great listen. The man respects his craft and his audience, and it comes across nicely. I tried to do something else while listening: laundry, cleaning, no go.