Defiance

Freedom begins with an act of defiance!

Based on a true story set during World War II, this is the tale of how four brothers in Belarus stood up against the might of the Nazi army. After losing most of their family in a German massacre, four Jewish brothers set up home in the woods. Soon they are joined by other Jews, and decide not to turn any applicants away. Their band soon grows to over 1000, which provides both opportunities and challenges: opportunity to strike back, and challenges to remain free and well fed. Disputes amongst the brothers lead to one leaving to join the Russian army, while the rest try to stay alive until the end of the war.

135 minutes.
No persons under 16 (Language, Violence, Prejudice).
Action, Drama, Thriller, War, On the art circuit

Not currently showing on the local cinema circuit.

M is never going to believe me this time...

Credits

Cast	Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Alexa Davalos, George MacKay, Allan Corduner, Mark Feuerstein
Director	Edward Zwick
Screenplay	Clayton Frohman, Edward Zick, from the book by Nechama Tec
Music	James Newton Howard
Cinematography	Eduardo Serra
Editing	Steven Roseblum
Sound formats	Dolby Digital, Sony Dynamic Digital Sound, DTS
Soundtrack	Available
Made in	2008
Produced by	The Bedford Falls Company, Grosvenor Park Productions, Pistachio Pictures

Film and Publications Board (FPB) Report (SA)

Genre	Drama
Language	Strong, frequent
Nudity	None
Sex	Very brief, but mildly implied, no impact
Violence	Strong, fairly intense psychological and physical violence
Prejudice	Racial prejudice and hatred, anti-semitism, persecutions in historical context
Blasphemy	None
Drug abuse	Some heavy alcohol use and inebriation in context
Comments	None
These details are supplied by the FPB. If you have a problem with any of the above, please take it up directly with the FPB. Read the Classification Guidelines.

ScreenIt Report (USA)

Sex / Nudity	Violence	Blood / Gore / Gross
Guns / Weapons	Profanity	Alcohol / Drugs
Smoking	Disrespectful / Bad Attitude	Imitative Behaviour
Frightening / Tense Scenes	Jump Scenes	Tense Family Scenes
Music (Scary/Tense)	Music (Inappropriate)	Topics to talk about

Ratings

Scale (Max)	20
What the Critics say
Cape Argus / The Star Theresa Smith	10
Die Burger Mariana Malan	10
Cape Times Kenneth Turan	10
The Citizen Peter Feldman This 135-minute production embraces family, honour, vengeance and salvation in its powerful statement.	16
Sunday Times Barry Ronge	10
24.com Ivan Sadler Approached with the right frame of mind Defiance could be enjoyable, but the non-stop clichés and stupid script ruin what could have been something special.	5
Chicago Sunday Times Roger Ebert The story of Defiance has all the makings of a deep emotional experience, but I found myself oddly detached.	13
eye Weekly Jason Anderson Though Zwick’s ham-fisted treatment of the tale and the hokey, variously accented dialogue often reduce Defiance to the level of a rote war movie, the details of the partisans’ achievement still make for compelling viewing.	10
Rolling Stone Peter Travers For all the film's flaws, this is a war story told with passion about a band of brothers that still has the power to inspire.	13
Metacritic.com 34 critics	12
Rottentomatoes critics 149 critics	12
Rottentomatoes tomatometer Tomatometer Professionally made but artistically uninspired, Ed Zwick's story of Jews surviving WWII in the Belarus forest lacks the emotional punch of the actual history.	11
What the People say
Internet 11948 Netizens	15
Average .. 57%	11