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Defiance (2008)

Starring: Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber Rating: R (Restricted) Format: DVD
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (141 customer reviews)
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Product Details

  • Actors: Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber
  • Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
  • Language: English
  • Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
  • Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Rating: R (Restricted)
  • Studio: Paramount
  • DVD Release Date: June 2, 2009
  • Run Time: 137 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (141 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B001FB55J4
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #821 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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    #17 in  Movies & TV > Drama > Military & War
    #19 in  Movies & TV > Action & Adventure > Action & Combat
    #35 in  Movies & TV > Military & War

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  • For more information about "Defiance" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Special Features

Commentary: Commentary by Director Edward Zwick
Featurette: Return to the Forest: The Making of Defiance
Featurette: Children of The Otriad: The Families Speak
Featurette: Bielski Partisan Survivors

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Three ferociously committed actors fill the roles of the Bielski brothers, Jewish partisans who escaped into the forests of Eastern Europe during the Second World War. Daniel Craig (taking a break from 007 duty) is Tuvia, the leader of a group of refugees who eventually number over a thousand; Liev Schreiber is Zus, the antagonistic warrior; and Jamie Bell is Asael, a peacemaker no less devoted to the survival of the community. The three performers give life to director Edward Zwick's account of this little-known chapter of Jewish resistance to the Holocaust, which otherwise plays more like a history lesson than a full-blooded movie. The film's best achievement is its strong location work, in Lithuania--as the community makes its home in the forest, the landscape becomes an important player in the drama at hand, and the changing of the seasons is charted with bone-chilling detail. Schreiber manages to get a little wry humor into this otherwise sober enterprise, and Daniel Craig creates an unusual character: a sort of anti-Bond, a hero whose body is all too fallible and whose decision-making is sometimes hesitant or morally compromised. It's a rare hero in a World War II movie that tends to withdraw from scenes rather than stride into them, but that's what Craig does. More than likely, the movie's main achievement will be sending the curious to read the histories of the Bielski brothers and why they matter in the chronicles of the Holocaust. --Robert Horton

Stills from Defiance (Click for larger image)











Product Description

Daniel Craig (James Bond: Quantum of Solace) stars as Tuvia Bielski, an ordinary citizen turned hero, in this action-packed epic of family, honor, vengeance and salvation. Defiance is a riveting adventure that showcases the extraordinary true story of the Bielski brothers, simple farmers –outnumbered and outgunned- who turned a group of war refugees into powerful freedom fighters. Tuvia, along with his unyielding brother, Zus (Liev Schreiber, X-Men Origins: Wolverine), motivate hundreds of civilians to join their ranks against the Nazi regime. Their “Inspirational story”* is a true testament to the human spirit. - David Densby, The New Yorker

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The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews

The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews

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Customer Reviews

141 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (141 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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101 of 113 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding, February 18, 2009
One wonders why it took so long to tell the story of the three Bielski brothers, who managed to save the lives of 1200 Jews during the Nazi Holocaust in World War II. My personal answer is that they didn't have anyone near the caliber of Daniel Craig to play the part of Tuvia.

The story opens with the Bielski brothers Tuvia (Craig) and Zus (Liev Schreiber) returning to the family farm to discover the Germans killed their parents. They find their younger brother, Asael (Jamie Bell) hiding from the slaughter in a cellar.

They decide to go to the forest to hide out. It's initially pure happenstance that they run into other refugees, but as the story progresses, they have a community from philosophers to warriors.

It's fascinating to see the community grow and the harsh realities of living under the Nazi radar. The images in this film will haunt me as strongly as the original newsreel "Let my People Go" did when I saw it in junior high.

In my opinion, "Defiance" is one of the top films of this year and I hope it earns the awards it deserves. The film is excellent for students of Jewish history, psychology, and community development. It's well worth full price in the theatre and adding to your collection.

Rebecca Kyle, February 2009
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54 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great movie! R rating undeserved, January 18, 2009
By R. Plemmons "deltadad" (Texas, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Story about Jews fleeing Nazi death squads in Belorussia who fight back against their occupiers and survive for years in forest hideouts. Very moving story and quite well-acted. The R rating is mind-boggling. I've seen PG-13 movies with more graphic violence. The profanity is sparse and never gratuitous. An excellent history lesson for teenagers, but the rating will keep many of them away (along with some adults). In the current climate of rising anti-Semitism and holocaust revisionism, this movie is unlikely to win awards, but it should.
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56 of 69 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Standard but worthy Holocaust drama, March 14, 2009
By Turfseer (New York, N.Y.) - See all my reviews
By necessity, one must focus on the survivors if one wishes to create a workable film about the Holocaust. For its only through the eyes and ears of the survivors (and their tales of suffering) that we can appreciate the enormity, the scope of what occurred to the victims of the Holocaust. Paradoxically, the tales of the survivors are nothing more than anomalies--which may give the wrong impression to the uninformed that the Holocaust was an ennobling event--that these tales of survival were somehow the rule rather than the exception.

Defiance is one such anomalous tale. Some critics have likened it to a critique of Jewish passivity--that the overwhelming majority of Jews went to their deaths without putting up a fight. And certainly that reputation is reinforced in 'Defiance' as the protagonists, Tuvia and Zus Bielski, stand out as Jewish outsiders who aren't afraid to fight the Nazis as opposed to the majority of the Jewish 'intellectuals', mostly freshly minted refugees from the ghetto, who end up as part of the Bielski 'community' within the Byelorussian forest.

But there is an excellent scene in Defiance, where Tuvia sneaks into the ghetto and confronts the head of the Jewish committee there, that demonstrates that the average Jew was not passive--simply bewildered and overwhelmed. Can you really blame the head of the Jewish committee when he doesn't believe Tuvia's tales of genocide? He says, 'yes, we've heard these stories, but who can really believe them?' Reports of atrocities reached the United States during the War but they were not really appreciated until the actual newsreel photos of truckloads of emaciated bodies were seen being bulldozed into ditches at Bergen-Belsen after the war was over.

The opening scenes of 'Defiance' are testament to the brutally swift nature of the Nazi genocide. In most cases, there was simply no time to think about resisting (or escaping). The Nazis came in, along with the help of the local authorities in the occupied territories and murdered the Jews in the blink of an eye. We see this very effectively illustrated in 'Defiance' after the Bielskis find their parents murdered on the family farm.

One of the picture's strengths is that it also illustrates the role of the local collaborators who assisted the Nazis. In a dazzlingly effective scene, Tuvia takes revenge by shooting the local police chief and his sons after they've murdered his parents. The collaborators aren't seen as monsters--quite the contrary, in a humanized portrait, the police chief begs for his life and insists he was forced to act at the bidding of his superiors in the Nazi occupation force (in an earlier scene, the police chief comes to a farm looking for one of the Bielski brothers who hides in a barn after attacking a group of Nazis--here the police chief is much more crass and arrogant--but still all too human!).

Nonetheless, Zwick, the film's director, should have had another scene involving the collaborators to balance out the 'sympathetic' portrait. The truth of the matter was that there were other of these local collaborators who were outright sadists, capable of incomprehensible, monstrous acts of brutality. Similarly, Zwick shows us a group of Jews in the forest who end up savagely beating a captured German soldier to death (despite his cries that he has a wife and children). While such acts of revenge did occur, it's hard to appreciate the context for their actions (it would have been better if Zwick had actually shown the Bielski parents, for example, being murdered and not merely the aftermath).

A good deal of 'Defiance' explores the conflict between the two brothers. Tuvia is the pragmatic one who comes to accept his role as a new 'Moses', leading his beleaguered group of 'intellectuals' to safety through the forest. At first he has only contempt for his fellow Jews who he regards as cowardly and passive. But as time passes, they earn his respect as they all become more proactive. Zus, on the other hand, wants to take direct action against the Nazis and joins the Soviet partisans as one of their fighters. I thought that the characterization of the Russians was one of the strongest parts of the movies. They are depicted sympathetically--shown both for their courage and brutality (Zus eventually leaves the partisans after he can no longer tolerate their anti-semitic stance).

A good part of 'Defiance' is taken up showing life in the forest camp. The characterizations are a mixed bag. Some of the characters are standard 'types' (the debate between the 'intellectual' vs. the 'spiritual' Jew is one such example). There are some good scenes depicting the malnourishment that the community had to endure along with a few obligatory romances. One scene I had a hard time believing was when Tuvia kills one of the food hunters who insists that his group gets extra portions of rations. Did that really happen? I'm not sure but it made for good drama.

I like Daniel Craig in this role a lot more than as James Bond; he gives a solid performance as an unlikely savior for his people. And Lev Schreiber is excellent as the tough as nails partisan who eventually reunites with his brother after a fractured relationship.

'Defiance' loses credibility in the final scene when the community battles a large group of Nazi soldiers backed up by a tank. I can't imagine that this actually happened. Nonetheless, I don't want to be too hard on Defiance. It's a film that will keep you absorbed from the opening credits. As a little known history lesson, it does its job. And certainly it was a worthy project to commemorate the deeds of the heroic Bielski brothers.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars gripping story, well-filmed
excellent movie, I wonder why I didn't hear of it soooner. I must admit I haven't seen Schindler's List (nor others about the Holocaust) but the perspective of this one intrigued... Read more
Published 3 days ago by Brynhildr

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent & Haunting
I was completely unaware of this chapter of WWII history.

Having recently watched this movie with my 14-year old son, I found it quite moving. Read more
Published 14 days ago by Tim Warneka

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing story

They did an excellent job with this movie, the acting, production, directing. The DVD was interesting because it showed in the special features the ancestors that are the... Read more
Published 19 days ago by Lowdly DoBad

5.0 out of 5 stars AWESOME!
This movie was amazing! Such a great history lesson. Why weren't we taught about this in school? Watching this type of movie reminds me how fortunate I am to have the petty... Read more
Published 28 days ago by J. Gonzales

4.0 out of 5 stars History Can Be Stranger (and Grander) Than Fiction
Hidden amongst the multiple film histories that litter the movies, occasionally you'll find a gem of a story that surprises the hell out of you. Read more
Published 1 month ago by B. Merritt

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!!!
Daniel Craig does not disappoint!!! This movie is action packed and full of great characters.
I highly recommend this movie to anyone who loves fact based World War 2 movies.
Published 1 month ago by jmax479

5.0 out of 5 stars Must See
This is the story that every free person must see. Even more so, it is a movie every Jew must see, to learn about the other story of Jews--the ones that fought and lived. Read more
Published 1 month ago by D. Boldo

4.0 out of 5 stars World War
This is a tough movie to watch--mainly because of its realism in detail of this very true incident of WW-2. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Raymond D. Grosser

4.0 out of 5 stars Defiance
The too rarely told story of defying Nazis. Liev Schreiber and Daniel Craig are first rate, the action sequences strong, and the plot credible. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Arnita D. Brown

5.0 out of 5 stars Liev Schreiber's acting chops put to good use!
What a fantastic story, and one I never even imagined had happened during those awful times. Liev Schreiber blew my socks off in his role. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Dana Paull

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