The revenge of the true story… In a season filled with movies that deal with issues of guilt and anger handed down from the Second World War—”Valkyrie,” as well as Holocaust-themed “The Reader,” “Adam Resurrected,” “Good,” “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”—”Defiance” may be the most thrilling, even if sometimes inappropriately so. Director Ed Zwick (“Glory,” “The Siege,” “The Last Samurai,” “thirtysomething”) directs Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell as brothers; it’s 1941 and they escape into the Belarusian forests to avoid the slaughter of the Jews of Eastern Europe. Some dialogue is stock and Zwick’s substantial skills at mounting historically derived, period-set productions can work against the story, which is stirringly told yet composed of familiar elements. Still, Schreiber’s character’s response to “Jews don’t fight”—”These Jews do”—suggests what Zwick and co-writer Clay Frohman’s intentions are to counter the proverbial stock narrative of passive Jews in history. But I hear Russian being spoken and Russian-accented English in a World War II-set film and my mind races immediately to the mad glories of Elem Klmov’s 1985 masterpiece, “Come and See.” Try to see that: it’s the kind of fierce, uncompromised movie that’s rarely allowed to be made. Still, “Defiance” is muscular; manly, even. Based on a nonfiction book, “Defiance: The Bielski Partisans” by Nechama Tec. 129m. (Ray Pride)
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