Excellent Film

Rating: 9/10 (4 January 2009)

I am not one that lists war movies on their list of favorite movie genres. I went with a friend who really wanted to see it and I liked it more than she did. Things I considered brilliant were the film opening and ending; the musical score; overall cinematography; the quick edits back and forth between forest community life and war scenes.
I felt Daniel Craig & Liev Schreiber did an outstanding job with the accents and actually speaking Russian. Sure, their natural accents showed up for a few brief seconds but their efforts deserve recognition as opposed to Tom Cruise who couldn't pull off an accent in Valkyrie.
Jamie Bell's performance brought me to tears.
Whether or not this storyline is 100% accurate should not be a major factor in determining the validity of the film. There are no doubt hundreds of stories of bravery and survival surrounding the Holocaust that no one will ever read about but Defiance is an excellent depiction of this horrible event in the worlds history that should never be forgotten.
I only saw the first hour of Valkyrie this week because the projectors film broke, but I honestly did not care and have no interest in seeing the rest of the film. In my opinion Defiance bests Valkyrie in every possible way.