Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

Defiance (2008) -vs- Valkyrie (2008)

Super Jews and Good Germans Take On the Nazis

The Smackdown. It’s Academy Award-worthy season, and you know what that means! Nazis! The multiplex is practically teeming with them. "Valkyrie" served them up for Christmas, and "Defiance" held it's own limited New Year's Eve release to qualify for awards season. Meanwhile, "The Reader" sneaked into a few theaters as well, waiting for its big push in January. Why, you ask, are the Nazis still cinema's all-purpose go-to bad guys? Silly Goosesteppers, you know why. Because everybody hates the Nazis, even the Germans! (Not all Germans, just the ones in “Valkyrie.") For your cinematic Nazi-hating pleasure, it’s “Defiance” against “Valkyrie” as we re-fight World War Two, the war everybody loves starring the villains everybody still loves to hate.

The Challenger. “Defiance” is an earnest piece of work, based on the true story of three Jewish brothers who escape Nazi-occupied Poland to hide in the Belarussian forest where they join the Russian resistance fighters and build a semi-safe haven for over a thousand other exiled Jews. There are a lot of characters in “Defiance.” Most of the exiled Jews are little more than unindividuated dress extras; we learn precious few of their stories or names. They fall into two categories – the gratefully compliant and the nasty rebels. Daniel (James Bond) Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie (Billy Elliott) Bell play the least likely looking brothers since “Twins” Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schreiber has made a career of playing Jewish… Craig not so much.

Valkyrie (2008) -vs- The Usual Suspects (1994)

Who Do You Trust?

The Smackdown.  All kinds of films that want to be considered for an Oscar just got dumped in theaters in a post-Christmas frenzy. Some of them won't even be out in wide-release for weeks but need to get even some limited screen-time in Los Angeles or New York to qualify. So we've been served up alleged Catholic molestations... men aging backwards... a dog's life... and Nazis. In the last category, we've got Jews fighting Nazis in Russia, Nazis sleeping with teenage boys after the war, and -- for the ultimate Smackdown -- Nazis versus Nazis. That would be Bryan Singer's newest film, Valkyrie, which explores the most ambitious and almost successful plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The film reunites Singer with screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie from The Usual Suspects and lets him return to the dramatic genre where he started his career.  So today, we put Bryan Singer circa 1994 up against Bryan Singer circa 2008 and this showdown, unlike Valkyrie, is one whose ending is not known...

The Challenger.  Valkyrie is a return to form in many ways for Singer.  The film explores the failed assassination plot on Adolf Hitler, one that came dangerously and surprisingly close to actually succeeding if not for a certain flukes.  Tom Cruise stars as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, an injured German soldier completely and utterly fed up with Hitler's ridiculous military ambitions.  Assembling a knock out class of some of Europe's finest actors, Singer crafts a straight-up historical heist tale that somehow manages to elicit suspense and tension despite everyone knowing the ending.  The film, expertly shot and directed, is a true testament to the art of historical filmmaking and how the known can still be suspenseful.

Black Book (2007) -vs- Europa, Europa (1990)

Editor's Note:  A lot of people are probably thinking about Nazis lately, given that Tom Cruise's "Valkyrie," Daniel Craig's "Defiance," and Kate Winslet's "The Reader" are all in release. Here's an earlier Smackdown of two foreign films that tackle Nazism from the inside-out.

Love in the Time of Fascism

The Smackdown. It's the ultimate identity crisis. You have to pretend to be a part of a group that wants to kill everybody in the group you're really in.  That's the jeopardy that two foreign language films (both supposedly based on true stories) place their lead characters in.  Both "Black Book" and "Europa, Europa" put Jewish characters in the agonizing peril of having to pass as Nazis in order to stay alive during World War II. Each one wants to raise the question about what's acceptable behavior in order to survive and what a person is willing to risk in order to strike back at a hated enemy. If you start to act like them, do you run the risk of becoming the thing you hate the most? 

The Challenger. Director Paul Verhoeven has gone back to his roots with this World War II film set in occupied Holland. He started there a quarter of a century ago with "Soldier of Orange" but took a long strange detour with films like "Total Recall," "Basic Instinct" and, yes, "Showgirls." He's got plenty of sex and violence in this tale about Rachel Stein, a young Jewish woman who survives the holocaust by adapting whenever and however necessary. She's played by the phenomenal Dutch actress Carice van Houten. After losing her family from a betrayal that leads to their death by machine gun fire, she joins the Resistance and finds her most important work to be the seduction of the head of the Gestapo in The Hauge, a sensitive Nazi-type named Ludwig Mantze. He's plahyed by my favorite German actor, Sebastian Koch, who stole the show in last year's "The Lives of Others."

Rescue Dawn (2007) -vs- Papillon (1973)

Show Me the Way to Go Home

The Smackdown. If you like seeing grown men reduced to eating insects, boy, do we have a deal for you. Here we put two teams of prisoners -- each made up of two men whose friendship with each other is as close as marriage -- in an environment even harsher than what Paris Hilton suffered through during her time in the slammer out here in LA. One man on each team has an unquenchable thirst for freedom and leads an escape against all the odds. Back in 1973, that was Steve McQueen in the freedom-lover role in "Papillon" and in 2007 it was Christian Bale in "Rescue Dawn." Their mates are Dustin Hoffman and Steve Zahn, respectively. Both films are portrayed as true stories, clearly embellished in the case of "Papillon" and a bit less so in "Rescue Dawn." The bitter imprisonment they each dramatize is so awful that dying while trying to get away is considered preferable to living with the way things are. Both films, by the way, really do trigger the question you may have in your own mind: would you also take this risk and lead the escape, or would you be the partner who is more afraid and has to be dragged along?

The Challenger. "Rescue Dawn" is the story of Navy airman Dieter Dengler (Christian "Batman" Bale) who in 1965, during the early part of the Vietnam war, had the misfortune to be shot down over Laos on his very first mission. A German immigrant who survived Allied bombing during World War II, Dengler now ends up surviving torture, starvation, solitary confinement, you name it, only to hatch a daring breakout plan which he has to sell to his fellow prisoners, Duane (Steve Zahn) and Gene from Eugene (Jeremy Davies). The film is directed by the crazy and eccentric Warner Herzog, known for giving us some crazy, eccentric heroes (Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo) in the past and Bale's Dengler is no exception. In fact, it's the way he endures the privation that's crushed the spirits of his cellmates that makes him seem so unusual because, if you think about it, being an optimist in Hell may make you crazy. In this film, freedom really is just another word for nothing left to lose because the guards at the camp are considering executing everybody so they can get home. This makes everybody in this awful place a prisoner. Don't think this film has a political agenda, though, because its narrow focus stays firmly on the incredible obstacles of just staying alive.

Body of Lies (2008) -vs- Blood Diamond (2006)

Leo as a Man of Action

The Smackdown.  Given his humble beginnings as a kid doing TV sitcoms like "Growing Pains," it's extraordinary to be writing about two huge-budget films where Leonardo DiCaprio is an action hero, but that's where we are.  Nobody thought the economy would be in the shape it is, either, so life is full of surprises.  In any case, both the Middle-East flavored "Body of Lies" and the Sierra Leone-based drama "Blood Diamond" are different kinds of thrillers, uniquely suited to DiCaprio's screen presence.  They're both thoughtful, smart films where the main character is a conflicted guy who finds himself in the middle of a situation that requires all his skills just to stay alive, let alone to figure out how to be a good guy or if he even wants to.  DiCaprio against DiCaprio in a rumble where bullets fly and f-bombs drop.

The Challenger.  "Body of Lies" is the latest film from super-director Ridley Scott who lately seems to be fascinated by the Middle East and our role in it.  In this film, DiCaprio plays Roger Ferris, a CIA operative with a bullet (as in, rising star) who's trying to track down a bin Laden-type named al-Saleem.  He's out there in the field nearly getting killed on a daily basis while Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) lives a suburban life back in America where he, literally, phones it in to Ferris out in the field. The theme of the film seems to be deception: how you can let the deception that is part of your job bleed into your life, and that, ultimately, nobody is innocent.  The screenplay was written by William Monahan ("The Departed") working from a book written by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.