Defiance

[CaptainLewis]

Craig sounds strange with that accent. Happy New Year Everyone

[LilleOSC]

Defiance's plot sounds interesting. Happy New Year.

[wrenchhands]

I'm sorry.... but in my day, Jewish resistance fighters were tall with dark hair. And they had senses of humor.

[katied]

People with blonde hair are not resistance fighters.com,anyone

[CaptainLewis]

Daniel Craig has admitted that he found learning Russian for his upcoming film a "nightmare".

The Bond star revealed that he was the "worst student" when it came to mastering the Slavic language for his role in new movie Defiance, according to WENN.

"It was a nightmare for me because I'm just the worst student in the world," he said. "I left school at 16. I had to do it phonetically, learn it and understand it."

Defiance is set in Poland during World War II. Craig plays one of four Jewish brothers who escape from the Nazis and fight back to rescue their fellow Jews.

Source: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/showbiz/a13 ... udent.html

[LilleOSC]

Well Russian is one of the harder languages to learn.

[stockslivevan]

Niet!

My friend has been wanting to see this, so perhaps I'll check it out.

[katied]

I'll probably see it...more for Liev Schreiber than anything else

[Mazer Rackham]

I'm sorry.... but in my day, Jewish resistance fighters were tall with dark hair. And they had senses of humor.

Yeah and they were circumcised too.

Craig's problem is he is more believable in German uniforms.

[Mazer Rackham]

Daniel Craig has admitted that he found learning Russian for his upcoming film a "nightmare".

The Bond star revealed that he was the "worst student" when it came to mastering the Slavic language for his role in new movie Defiance, according to WENN.

"It was a nightmare for me because I'm just the worst student in the world," he said. "I left school at 16. I had to do it phonetically, learn it and understand it."

Defiance is set in Poland during World War II. Craig plays one of four Jewish brothers who escape from the Nazis and fight back to rescue their fellow Jews.

Source: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/showbiz/a13 ... udent.html

He is a lazy actor. Language can be difficult but he eschews any kind of mental effort that requires memorization.

Besides what I'm hearing is defiance is a turkey. By the way the ads on TV for this movie make you wonder how this morose clown could ever have been considered for Bond.

[LilleOSC]

Besides what I'm hearing is defiance is a turkey.

Its reviews aren't looking good.

[CaptainLewis]

World War II drama Defiance goes against the Hollywood grain, portraying a real-life community of Jews who took an active role in deciding their fate rather than be numbered amongst the victims. Daniel Craig leads the flock as Tuvia Bielski, one of three brothers who escaped Nazi clutches to establish a hideout in the Belorussian woodland they'd known since childhood. Director Ed Zwick fails to justify the epic running time, but as ever, Craig is a riveting presence. Not only must he fend off enemy soldiers, he must also battle to keep his own animal instincts at bay.

In a chaotic opening sequence, Tuvia's father is murdered and he's overwhelmed by a thirst for bloody revenge. He quickly satisfies the urge before disappearing into the forest where he is joined by his brothers Zus (an even more hot-headed Liev Schreiber) and youthful optimist Asael (Jamie Bell). On a brief incursion into the village to seek food, Tuvia is then persuaded to lead more men, women and children to his forest sanctuary. Word quickly spreads and their numbers grow so that Tuvia, against his intentions, is suddenly burdened with leadership.

There are hints that Tuvia was an outlaw in his former life and that the Bielskis were generally looked-down upon. Sadly Zwick doesn't spend enough time drawing the difference between who Tuvia was and who he becomes. It's largely left to Craig to emote that heavy sense of loneliness which comes with his gradual ascent to power. As the hard winter sets in and petty squabbles break out over food, Tuvia must work harder to keep order. He also delivers rousing speeches, assuring the people that, "We may be hunted like animals, but we will not become animals." It's in quiet reflection that Tuvia is more interesting though, seeming to be nagged by doubt.

Tuvia's edging towards a loss of faith culminates in a distressing scene where a Nazi officer is literally torn to pieces by the angry mob. Tuvia looks on, impassive. By this time Zus has left to take up with a nearby deployment of Russian partisans (after an über macho bout of sibling rivalry) and even the sensitive Asael becomes hardened to the chaos. But, in a carefully measured performance by Bell, he also coaxes Tuvia out of his stupor. Our hero is given another reason to carry on in the shape of Alexa Davalos as his 'forest wife' Lilka. Flashes of humour also play a part in lifting morale, including a long-running joke about the lookout who's always looking the other way.

Whenever the script reaches a crossroads, Zwick falls back on dramatic cliché. Lilka nurses Tuvia through a fever that weakens his resolve, but beyond her compassion, there is little else to the character. And holding the line with the Russians, Zus is only faced with anti-Semitism when it comes to the point of having to choose to retreat with them or face the oncoming Germans. That final stand-off makes for a conventional last act - a clear-cut battle of good vs. evil. Given that Zwick has spent so much time painting Tuvia in shades of grey, it seems like a moral lapse. And the repeated references to Moses leading his people to the promised land (with machineguns!) border on sacrilegious. Ultimately, it's not the saintliness of Tuvia that strikes a chord but the human flaws that Zwick shies away from and which Craig so fully embraces. ***

Source: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/a140 ... iance.html

[Dr. No]

If thats a good review I'd hate to see a bad one

What is it with Craig adn making depressing films. All of the others made comedy movies from time to tiem. IMHO that is more a test of acting chops than drama.

Joss Whedon used to go out and find comedy actors and bring them on to do serious roles. Like that woman in Serenity who scream while the Reavers are killing her. He had another "serious" actress do the role but didn't feel she captured the moment so he got the woman who appeared in teh film.

[CaptainLewis]

Bell: 'Craig saved me from hypothermia'

Jamie Bell has revealed that Daniel Craig saved him from getting hypothermia.

The actor admitted that without Craig's "Hollywood power" he could have fallen seriously ill.

The pair were shooting outdoor scenes in Lithuania for their new movie Defiance when the Billy Elliot actor grew colder and colder.

"The conditions were ripe for a bout of, 'I'm not f**king doing this!' but the closest we got was Daniel standing up for me one day in the rain at the end of October, it was absolutely freezing," Contactmusic quotes him as saying.

"My body started to lose control, going into hypothermic shock, I think. He said, 'We have to stop, he's starting to freak out and he's going to die'. He used his Hollywood power for good."

Bell added that Craig's on-screen 'manly' demeanour similar to his real-life personality.

"It's daft, because you do have to be butch in the presence of Bond, but Daniel has a really good heart and said, 'You need to take a second and then come back'. He's very much the leader that he portrays in this film."

Craig and Bell's new movie Defiance is in UK cinemas now.

What is Hollywood power?

[CaptainLewis]

Defiance: Bond of brothers as Craig stars in true tale of Jewish defiance

Defiance (15)

The story is extraordinary, all the more so because it is true. In 1941, three farming brothers, Jewish Poles, took refuge in the dense woods of Belarus near the Novogrudok ghetto as the Nazi occupiers massacred their compatriots by the thousand.

They not only learned how to stay alive but fought the German patrols and their collaborators and raided their old homes to mete out revenge.

By the end of the war they had established a community of survivors numbering well over 1,000.

So much for the persistent theory that the Jews did nothing to fight back.

In Edward Zwick's film, based on Nechama Tec's moving book of the same name, Daniel Craig - taking time off from playing James Bond - Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell take the parts of the brothers, fierce rivals at times but determined somehow to survive.

It is an unorthodox cast - probably an attempt to increase the box office value of yet another holocaust story.

What doesn't work is Zwick's pedestrian telling of the tale.

It is not aided by a very ordinary screenplay from Zwick and Clay Frohman and by direction which constantly puts one in mind of an old-fashioned Second World War thriller that happens to star Jewish heroes rather than John Wayne or Errol Flynn.

Even so, Craig as Tuvia, the reluctant but eventually dictatorial leader of the group, who had himself lost his wife and infant daughter, demonstrates that playing 007 only partly shows off his talents.

And both Schreiber, as the brother hooked on revenge rather than survival, and Bell, as the youngest sibling emotionally caught between the two, seem like real people rather than actors.

Defiance remains a fantastic story. No one could doubt the sincerity of its telling. What Defiance lacks is simply an ability to make it come fully alive.

The film is on general release from Friday.

Rating: ***

We shall fight them in the forests...

Why did the Jews not fight back against the Nazis? The answer is that some did.

Edward Zwick's film, based on truth, tells the story of the three Bielski brothers, who took to the cold, inhospitable forests of Belorussia, formed a community of Jewish exiles from the ghettos and fought a desperate guerilla war.

Zwick has shown before that he is an extremely competent director.

However, he has a tendency to make everything fit an over-familiar Hollywood template of heroism in three acts.

The length of the movie and the violin-dominated score may suggest a heartbreaking epic with the power of Schindler's List, but the film ends up settling for the professional competence of a crowd-pleasing action flick, such as Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.

It doesn't help that neither Daniel Craig nor Jamie Bell looks even slightly Jewish.

One actor who does convince is Liev Schreiber's stroppy, vengeful brother, who is allowed to be flawed and complicated.

Too many of the other characters conform to Hollywood stereotypes - a pity, since the film is trying to destroy the stereotype of Jews as helpless victims.

Although I often felt frustrated by Zwick's lack of complexity and love of pontificating, on-the-nose dialogue, I was never bored.

This is a fascinating story, all the more relevant in view of current events in Gaza, which could also be interpreted as a response by Jews to being under attack, but with more arms at their disposal, and much more powerful friends.

I suspect that the current wave of virulently anti-Israeli sentiment among opinion-formers in this country may result in this film being judged more harshly than it deserves.

It isn't all it might have been, but it's still a gripping yarn, intelligently crafted, worth seeing. And Schreiber is superb.

Verdict: A gripping yarn

***

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/re ... ests-.html and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/re ... iance.html

It looks like this film is average.

[katied]

Like I said on another thread:His non-Bond films are hardly blockbusters are they? substandard movie with Daniel Craig and the filmmakers are hoping to get the punters in strictlyon the fact Daniel Craig is in it.

[The Sweeney]

What is it with Craig adn making depressing films. All of the others made comedy movies from time to tiem. IMHO that is more a test of acting chops than drama.

Joss Whedon used to go out and find comedy actors and bring them on to do serious roles. Like that woman in Serenity who scream while the Reavers are killing her. He had another "serious" actress do the role but didn't feel she captured the moment so he got the woman who appeared in teh film.

I don't agree at all. No one looks at Steve Martin or John Candy as serious actors, in the same league as Pacino or Brando. Drama shows off far more skills with acting chops than comic timing.

Why do you think De Niro's credibility has been shot to pieces since he has started doing comedy roles. Meet the Parents will never ever compete with the likes of Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, in terms of testing the old acting chops.

[The Sweeney]

He is a lazy actor.

Are you basing this on that one comment from Craig?

[carl stromberg]

Al Pacino and Robert De Niro seem to play comedy caricatures of themselves nowadays. You would have to be clinically insane to hire Daniel Craig for a comedy.

[LilleOSC]

It looks like this film is average.

That's a shame. I thought the premise sounded interesting.