Edward Zwick’s World War II movie “Defiance,” starring Daniel Craig in the role of Tuvia Bielski, tells the real-story of two Jewish brothers who managed to escape the Nazis and also save another 1.200 people from an impending death.

Zus and Tuvia Bielski, along with their younger brother, helped fellow Jews elude the German SS by hiding in a forest where Belarus is now located.

Even though the productions has some Hollywood polish on it, with fight scenes, speeches and the lighting seeming too perfectly thought out, both the director and the cast, which includes Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell and Mia Wasikowska, manage to keep the audience focused on the historic charge of the event depicted.

Nevertheless, the violence that the movie is rife with is kept under control by Zwick, who draws the line whenever things threaten to cross over to downright distasteful or pointless, whenever the hard to watch scenes could only be translated as violence for violence’s sake.

The movie was shot in Lithuania over a period of twelve weeks, the location being close to the Belarusian forests where the Bielskis lived and fought against Nazis.

During the filming, Daniel Craig met Tuvia’s son.

Speaking of his character, Craig said that what he liked about Tuvia was that he was a man of moral ambiguity, but added that despite the fact that the Bielskis had undoubtedly done many bad things, what remained most important were the 1,200 people they had helped get through the war.