Director Edward Zwick tells the story of the Bielski family, three brothers who helped form a Nazi resistance taking to the woods for shelter and sanctuary and in the process helped to save thousands from the cruel fates Jews were enduring the holocaust. Even in spite of squabbles and loss of rations from time to time their force was almost unstoppable and Zwick takes this time to examine the madness of men in war time fighting for survival with so little. Like “Lord of the Flies” the groups of refugees and horrified peoples learned to build villages, engaged in some fine craft work and held out warding off disease and the looming threat of the Nazi brush fire sweeping across the world. The Nazis are proposed here as less a force of human violence, and more as a presence that looms out from the forest that we only see every so often to kill the Jewish rebels.

The whole time I sat watching this, one question came to mind: Why am I not more emotionally involved with these characters? Zwick has every such chance to bring us close to everyone on the cast including Craig and Schreiber and instead opts on keeping us at a distance with so little characterization that Zwick can never seem to know what he wants from us. Sometimes the film falls in an action movie pit with the itch that this is all a prototype for a Rambo movie, and then only minutes later desperately tries to garner a tear or two from the audience through scenes that we've seen executed better in past Holocaust epics. The most glaring problem is that we learn in the end credits that all of the brothers being based on actual characters survived, and Zwick nonetheless sets up the pretense that no one is safe. But we know better once we’re introduced to Craig and co. who speak fluent English among their people, by the way and only don the genuine Jewish and German speak whenever Zwick is trying to create tension among the characters. This habit is so distracting that it almost takes away any chance that this film has to be considerably relevant in the library of titles focusing on World War II and the Jewish resistance during the Nazis reign of terror.

I’m still a sucker for Holocaust films and “Defiance” won me over in spite of the lack of pacing and suspense. In the end it’s not the best of the sub-genre and it won’t replace “Schindler’s List” or “Uprising,” but it’s a good enough film where Craig and Schreiber shine.