I Defy This Movie to Be Good
I’m going to ask a really honest and sincere question: Why do genuinely talented actors who surely have many, many options for high-paying work — performers like, say, Daniel Craig — agree to star in Edward Zwick films? Looking at the trailer for Defiance, it appears that Zwick has made basically the same movie that he’s been making for at least a decade now, in which a proud ethnic minority stands up for their rights against a brutal cultural oppressor… under, of course, the convenient leadership of an attractive, male, A-list white movie star.
Like Zwick’s previous films, Defiance is guaranteed to contain most or all of the following elements: a swelling, thundering orchestral score that telegraphs emotions from half way across the equator (which maybe makes sense since that’s the distance he always expects between his audience and his subject matter); gorgeous, resort-like photography of some exotic foreign location; grand, melodramatic battle scenes without a hint of passion or excitement to them; a character who overcomes his personal pettiness and finds salvation in sacrificial fighting for the oppressed people selected for the film (this character is likely to die); a half dozen incredibly generic, clunky exchanges of dialog meant to sound deeply meaningful.
(Sample:
Katsumoto: You believe a man can change his destiny?
Algren: I think a man does what he can, until his destiny is revealed.
Oh! How thought provoking! It’s all so clear to me now.)
I’d hesitate to even call his movies pretentious. It’s like Zwick looked up pretentious in the dictionary once and then went home and made a shoddy imitation of pretentiousness.
Sure, it’s all clearly marked as Oscar-bait, but even amongst your average slate of desperate-for-awards Academy Epics, Zwick films are trash. If The Godfather is a five-star luxury meal, and your typical Oscar wannabe film is a sit down lunch at two-star chain, Zwick’s movies are microwave TV dinners. They look okay on the packaging, maybe, but once you peel off the cellophane, you’ll find an unappealing mess of preprocessed crap.
And yet: There’s James Bond, hamming it up with the one-step-above-John-Malkovitch-in-Rounders-Russian accent. Didn’t Craig bother to actually watch Blood Diamond? Or, fercryinoutloud, The Last Samurai? It shouldn’t have to be a rule that Tom Cruise should never, ever play a ninja, but well, there you go.
What a mean-spirited column. First of all, this picture differs from Zwick’s past work because it’s about Jews surviving and fighting for their survivial during the Holocaust. Zwick is Jewish. Even if you didn’t care for his past films (which I completely disagree with), I’d go out on a limb here and say that this is likely to be a very personal story to tell for Mr. Zwick and, therefore, somewhat different from his past filmmaking efforts. GLORY, BLOOD DIAMOND, THE LAST SAMURAI were excellent commercial films that made millions around the globe. GLORY was the best reviewed of the bunch (90% at Rotten Tomatoes, while BLOOD DIAMOND and THE LAST SAMURAI are in the 60’s). Certainly someone is going to see his movies and they do so because he tells stories that deserve to be told. So perhaps he tells them in a more commercial way and with commercial casting choices. Having Tom Cruise in THE LAST SAMURAI helped the film make over $400 million worldwide – so apparently Ed Zwick is smart too because he knows he’ll have more freedom in his storytelling endeavors if his films make money for the studios releasing them (and let us not forget that actors often get back-end money from their films). Bottom line: His movies make money and if they are making money that means people are going to see them. And I would venture a guess it’s because they like the way Zwick tells a story. Perhaps that includes Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber who are in DEFIANCE. No matter, I love his movies — and care not a lick if that makes me seem like I have less taste in your eyes and others who would dismiss this directors’ work because he likes emotional, moving scores and glossy, gorgeous cinematography. I do too.
— Leone · Feb 18, 08:54 PM · #
I agree with the latter – and I liked Samurai very much and are definitley looking forward to Defiance.
“directors’ work because he likes emotional, moving scores and glossy, gorgeous cinematography. I do too.” Yes.
— Andrea · Feb 20, 08:32 AM · #
Sorry, but I’ll never ever buy the argument that box-office proves a film’s worth, or, in fact, proves anything whatsoever about how good or bad it is. There are far too many terrible, terrible films that have made bucket loads of cash for that to be even remotely convincing.
— Peter Suderman · Feb 20, 08:50 PM · #