Spellcheck nemesis Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Tomas Arana and Alexa Davalos have joined Daniel Craig in the forthcoming Defiance, directed by Edward Zwick.
The story is set in Eastern Europe during World War II, when three Jewish brothers (Schreiber, Craig and Bell) escaped into the Belarussian forest to escape the Nazis and joined Russian resistance fighters there. As the War continued the Bielski brothers then built a village in the woods and helped more than 1,200 other Jews hide out there amid the Nazi terror.
The brothers' story is a fascinating one - they maintained a non-negotiable policy of protecting Jewish civilians, even apparently executing one of their comrades when he left a Jewish woman behind, and have been accused of ruthlessness and even war crimes in their activities, but did save over a thousand lives in the darkest days of the War.
Arana, who you may remember from Gladiator or The Bourne Supremacy will play Ben Zion, a skilled Resistance leader, and Davalos (The Chronicles of Riddick) will play Polish refugee Lilka and Craig's love interest.
Zwick's written the screenplay based on Nechama Tec's book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans. We know that Zwick can do war stories (practically all his films, and all his biggest hits, involve some sort of military backdrop) and this could suit him well. After all, his most recent film**, Blood Diamond**, was his morally murkiest to date. If this builds on those foundations and looks at all sides of the brothers' heroism, he could yet turn into a heavyweight contender.