Brief: After their parents are murdered in an SS raid, the Bielski brothers (Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, and George MacKay) hide in the woods in Belarussia to save themselves from certain death. While in hiding, they find other Jews and agree to band together; word gets out about their community and soon Jews from all over are making their way to the brothers for a chance to be free and live.I know you might be like, "Belarus?," but they call it "Belarussia" in the movie, so that's what I'm going with here.
Where would we be without director and co-writer Edward Zwick? He's really cornered the market on humanist war movies, hasn't he? Even if he hadn't, I'd still love him for My So-Called Life and Once and Again, so he's just sort of awesome, isn't it? He's not a genius, but he's great. He's got a particular sense of how infuse real human responses into unfamiliar situations that make them familiar for the audience. Of course, his movies tend to suffer from obviousness, and I suspect that he and co-writer Clayton Frohman are playing fast and loose with the Bielski brothers' actual history.
Zwick's got all sorts of sexy, fantastic actors up in our grill, so let's just keep it in perspective. First we've got Craig as oldest brother Tuvia, the de facto leader. He's the only one who struggles to maintain the accent while speaking English (which stands in for Yiddish, while Russian gets to be Russian). Then we've got my dear Schreiber as second oldest Zus, rocking an accent in a Holocaust movie, which is exactly how I met him. My faithful viewing partner turned to me as the credits rolled but before she could open her mouth, I announced that yes, Liev Schreiber is so foxy. He is one of two actors that I would describe as cerebral. Bell rounds things out as Asael, the third son, who seems like a natural successor to Tuvia while Zus gets to be the hothead. (Sidebar: Bell should really be more famous by now.) Finally there's little Aron, but he gets next to no lines and no post-credits "whatever happened to?" moment. Poor MacKay.
Bear with me because I'm about to say something crass: I've got Holocaust movie fatigue. Don't balk because you've got it, too. It's all righteous, oppressed Jews and evil, unambiguous Nazis. While the site of a mass grave while never fail to be stomach churning, there's nothing in Zwick's filmmaking to allow for any nuance or shades of grey. The Bielskis are thieves and murderers to be sure, but it doesn't matter because they're the dispossessed. At least it doesn't matter in Zwick's forest, and it doesn't matter in the same way that it doesn't matter what Hanna had done since or what her circumstances were when Michael found out that she used to be a Nazi in The Reader. Now that's all she'll ever be to him. You can do the right thing and not be a hero; you can do the wrong thing and not be a villain. Motive counts, and in movies like this motives are always so simple. You do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. You give the big speech, and James Newton Howard's score swells, and you get the love of electric Gwen from Angel (the transcendentally beautiful Alexa Davalos) for your trouble.
At least Zwick's a talented director with a great cast, or all this might wearying. B+
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