DVD OF THE WEEK

Defiance ****
Dir: Edward Zwick
Starring: Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell

There seems to have been a resurgence of WW2 resistance films recently, what with Female Agents, Black Book, Flame and Citron, Inglorious Basterds and now, Defiance, based on a true story and probably the most serious of the bunch.
The story involves the Bielski brothers – Craig, Schreiber and young Bell – Jews fighting against the mass deportment and slaughter that happened throughout Eastern Europe, here specifically Belarus. They escape the clearance of the ghettos and hole up in the woods where as more survivors arrive a veritable community is created. The difficulty of keeping this disparate group together provides a backbone of tension.
Through the brothers, Zwick explores the extremes that war forces humans to. Craig's Tuvia is an idealist trying to retain his humanity when confronted by horrific decisions and actions. The maxim 'We may be hunted like animals, but we will not become animals” is sorely tested. Schreiber's Zus joins the Russian resistance and is prepared to do whatever he thinks necessary, but finds his Jewish identity is deeper than the ties that form simply because of a common enemy.
There is much to admire – a great turn from Craig, splendid cinematography, and a fine score from James Newton Howard. The battle scenes are pulse-pounding and there are gripping moments of moral decision-making. Good to see a film which involves the head, heart and gut in equal measures.

Dour Irish comedies don't get a lot more dour than A Film With Me In It (***). Mark Doherty wrote it and stars as Mark, would-be actor, useless slacker. When a bizarre series of accidents leaves his flat full of dead bodies he enlists his equally slack wannabe writer mate Dylan Moran. Things, unsurprisingly, go from bad to worse. A deadpan black comedy this gets a little lost along the way but has much to enjoy before the iffy ending.

Killshot (**) looks like it has everything going for it. Book by Ellroy Leonard, directed by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love), starring Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane, Thomas Jane, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the whole is much less than its parts. Rourke's hitman teams with Levitt's junior psycho to kill Lane and Jane who are in witness protection. Great performances but no hint of wit in the very predictable script leads to a dull relentless ride.

I guess it's the Sweeny Todd effect that gives us R18 shock musical Repo! The Genetic Opera (**). I can't imagine why else anyone would make a film of this gory mish-mash, blending a cartoon backstory with the tale of a future dystopia where organs are sold and – as the title suggests – repossessed. Action revolves round a gangster family led by a slumming Paul Sorvino but there are many problems, from the badly-paced story to, most importantly, a set of songs that don't seem to have a decent hook amongst them.

David Lynch's daughter Jennifer took a long time before directing her second movie. Just as well, since the first, Boxing Helena, was one of cinemas all-time turkeys. With Surveillance (***) she is on slightly surer footing with the tale of a couple of FBI agents investigating a roadside killing spree in Nowhereville USA. As the brutal story is pieced together from the surviving eyewitnesses we begin to suspect that things are not all they seem. Despite much good work and some memorably horrific violence proceedings are undone by lurking plot holes and a 'twist” that many will find blindingly obvious.