Great story, not so great characterizations

Rating: 5/10 (27 November 2014)

A fantastic true story is given a Hollywood treatment and cardboard cutout characters with questionable accents by the actors make this an unsatisfying film. It's difficult to get emotionally invested in archetypal characters spouting generic dialogue and these one dimensional people never make the stakes feel high enough to care about their fate. Edward Zwick who usually has a strong visual style, flatly directs this picture which looks more suited for television than on the big screen. His screenplay feels like the cliff notes version of Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, punched up with stereotypical hero speak, stereotypical jerk characters whose fate is sealed the moment they act like a jerk and action sequences that feel designed to get the film funded and belong in another film. Watching this group of survivors squabble and deal with the deadly elements of winter is usually undermined by poor acting and atrocious dialogue - never helped by off screen shouts of some variation of 'it's dangerous' 'we have no food!' 'we can't make it across that river.' Defiance wastes a spectacular true story and is a generic, by the numbers film.