Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell portray the Bielski Brothers who lead a group of upward of 1,000 Jewish refugees in Nazi-occupied Europe. They survive by hiding in the Belorussian forests living meekly and constantly worried about being discovered. They eventually hook up with the Russian resistance and then there's lots of guns and fire and stuff.

This should be a great movie and it isn't.

Daniel Craig, while perfectly fine in many roles involving brooding, violent men, doesn't work here. He can look convincing when he hits a man, he looks like he can put some stank on it. However, he shows here he has a little trouble hitting a man and making us care he's done so. His James Bond physical presence has its place and he's great at it. It simply has no place in a film about Jews scraping a living in a freezing forest.

Opposite Craig is Lev Schreiber who offers what I think is perhaps his best performance. He strikes the right tone for dramatic action. Throughout the film it occurred to me that he should have been cast in Craig's role. This should have been his chance to graduate from supporting to lead role.

The film as a whole is far too long and often too concerned with punching up conflicts. The audience is asked to hop from one crisis to the next, always preoccupied with a moment of peril or someone screaming at someone else that it is hard to settle down enough to really care about the proceedings. By the third act, my interest was exhausted.

Director Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond) not only drags the production out too long, he fails to provide a useful villain. If that wasn't bad enough, he never brings the audience into the living conditions of the refugees. We are told and shown that it stinks to be hiding out in the woods in the dead of winter - we know this. We are never asked to feel how terrible the conditions were, to really have any understanding of their predicament.

Put simply, this is a missed opportunity.




Related Reviews:
Daniel Craig movies
Layer Cake (2003)
Casino Royale (2006)


Other Critic’s Reviews:
Critical Mass Film House
ReelFilm Reviews





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Labels: Daniel Craig, film, Jamie Bell, Liev Schreiber, movie review, World War II