Defiance- The DVD

reviewed by Marc Schulman

Defiance opening screen is not different from may holocaust movies; Nazis or their sympathizers come for the Jews some are killed on the spot and some are taken away to be killed later. This is where the similarity ends. For in Defiance the sons of those killed decided to take upon themselves the revenge of the death of their parents. Defiance is the polar opposite of the most commercially successful holocaust film Chandlers List. There the Jews are dependant on the good graces of righteous Christian to save them. Instead in Defiance the Jews fight back and hold off the local anti=Semitic Nazis collaborators as well as the German army itself. The stars of Defiance, which tells the true story of three brothers in the occupied Soviet Union, do not start off to be heroes, but their actions soon transform them into somewhat reluctant heroes. They find themselves responsible for an every growing number of Jewish refugees who have escaped the Nazis death machine by fleeing to the forests.

The group transforms itself into an effective partisan force, both to survive and to find opportunities to hurt the Nazis. Instead of Jews who have lost their ability control their own destinies we see a group of potential victims who claim control of their lives and survive.

Defiance is an inspiring film; the story it tells is engrossing. The actors led by Daniel Craig give excellent performances. Alan Zwieg the director has done an outstanding job of translating this true story to the big screen. The move is rated R for violence. The rating surprised me; the level of violence in the movie is no higher then all of the WW2 movies that I watched as a kid. I highly recommend the movie, both for individuals and class use, although the R ratiing does provide a needless impedtament for that.

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