Defiance (2008)

Director Edward Zwick (“Glory”) has an amazing true story in “Defiance.” In 1939, two Belarusian brothers named Bielski (Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber) lead a gun-and-blade rebellion against Nazi invaders, while shepherding hundreds of fleeing Jews deep into the dark forest to hide. At first only a handful of Jews come. Then hundreds arrive. For three years. The masses have much else to fear with disease, inner-rebellions, winter and matter-of-fact starvation hovering constantly, also promising death. Those are glorious origins, haunting and heroic, but Zwick still doesn’t trust this story enough. He plays Whack-a-Mole with war movie clichés, including an eye-roller scene where Mr. Bond rides a white horse (!) before his followers, bellowing aloud a maudlin “Braveheart” speech. My face turned blue. An “Exodus”-like retreat ends with our heroes using rifles to battle a full Nazi tank division, and thus history is truncated for “Red Dawn” stunts and action. C+