salt.

this movie doesn’t suck.  initial reviews had been bad by some of the other movie geeks, but nah, they are just being geeks.  this film ain’t so bad.

according to imdb.com, the role was initially pitched to tom cruise but he decided it was too similar to his mission:impossible franchise.  and i can see where he’s coming from.

it’s a good old fashioned action flick.  russians trying to pull some covert BS, trying to get at our nukes and all that noise.  some killer fight sequences, intense action movie soundtrack and we get to watch angelina jolie kick some serious tail for an hour and a half.

i can think of worse ways to spend an afternoon.  now i’m not gonna run right out and buy the dvd.  and i might be hard pressed to even pick it up in the 5 for 20 bin at the blockbuster.  but i wouldn’t pick up mission:impossible out of that bin either…

kinda reminds me of from paris with love starring john travolta and that dude plays henry the viii.  jonathan rhys meyers.  just some fun action.  fairly simple spy flick.

in real life i’m taking liev schreiber over angelina jolie in a fist fight.  he’s twice her size.  but she does know all the right places to hit….

defiance.

Defiance.

 

This is a pretty good war flick.  Once again a WWII movie with no concentration camps but there are some starving Jews.  This is the true story about some Russian Jews that escape into the forest when the Germans invade.

 

It starts with a group of brothers.  Daniel Craig being the oldest brother and Liev Schreiber being the next oldest.  As they journey in the forest they come across other Russian Jews escaping the Nazis.  And they don’t really want to take responsibility for them, they do anyway.

 

At first the pull some old school Wolverines stuff.  You know, acting like bandits raiding villages and killing Nazis and Nazi collaborators and what not.  I mean, who wouldn’t?  But then they start to take a more humanitarian tact and start to build temporary villages in the forest.

 

As you can imagine, life in the forest is not easy.  I was complaining about not having an auto start on my car last night it was so cold.  Then I realized, at least I’m not really freezing my toes off in the forest of Belarusky while trying to hide from the Germans.

 

It is somewhat of a predictable plot.  I mean, other than the fact it is based on actually historic events…but you know what I mean.  They fall in love and take forest wives, the two brothers fight, one gets delusions of grandeur and thinks he’s like king of the forest Jews, the other leaves the community to go fight the Germans with the Russian army that is also holed up in the forest.

 

You can pretty much figure the ending out from there unless you didn’t know that 1200 hundred Russian Jews survived in the forest until the end of the war.  And well, now you know.

 

I thought the two main actors were pretty good.  Everyone else was a little underdeveloped I think.  Especially the women characters.  And there was one scene that bothers me the most.  Daniel Craig comes to the Russian army after he and Liev have had their scuffle to ask for medicine.  There is a police base where there is medicine and also a Nazi transmitter.  But the Russians won’t go there because they say there are Germans everywhere. 

 

So Liev and Daniel volunteer to go into this village, destroy the transmitter and take the medicine.  With three guys.  Three guys.  The Russians are afraid to send a unit of army soldiers into this town because there are Germans all over and yet three Hebrew Warriors roll in and kick some ass?

 

What?

 

I think my favorite part of the movie was their cool Russian accents.  Tom Cruise should watch this movie, then watch his Valkyrie and figure out the difference.  Tom Cruises plot to kill Hitler in Valkyrie was no good because the Furor was unsettled by one of his colonel’s American accent….come on Tom Cruise.

 

All in all this is a pretty good war flick.  Lots of good fighting sequences.  Some pretty good acting by the main characters.

 

Defiance gets two and a half starving Jews out of five.