This should more properly be called Kidnapped, and not be confused with the funky Stephen King miniseries of the same name. It’s a simple title for a simple story: a girl is grabbed and Dad doesn’t like it, basically; but it’s also a good example of what can be done with a good but unremarkable script if you give it a bunch of really good actors.
Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, who used to do something mysterious for the government. They mention Langley, so I’m guessing he was CIA, but he calls himself a Preventer. No, I’m not sure what that means either, but the details of it aren’t important. He used to travel all over the world Preventing Bad Things, which of course meant that he had little time left over to spend with his wife Lenore (Famke Janssen, who barely has enough scenes to get warmed up) and daughter Kim (Maggie Grace — she was on Lost, but don’t ask me if she was on the plane that crashed or not). Now, though, he’s retired and living near his ex-wife and child, trying to work his way back into Kim’s life.
Kim gets the chance to visit Paris, and like pretty much any 17-year-old, leaps at the opportunity. But of course her father, who has seen nothing but the dregs of society most of his life, objects strenuously. The audience knows he’s right to object, but we also know that he’s going to give in, because he can’t say no to his little girl. Classic divorced parent syndrome.
Anyway, this is where the movie lives up to its title — Kim and her friend are grabbed and hauled out of the apartment they’re staying in (which is huge and way too cool for any teenagers to be allowed to stay in alone). But Kim was on the phone with her father at the time, and that’s when you get the bit you’ve probably seen in the previews, where Liam Neeson explains to his daughter’s kidnappers exactly how he’s going to hunt them down if they don’t let her go. That’s a good part. That’s where you see Liam flex his acting muscles.

Hint: No one who gets in Liam’s way should feel lucky.

Apparently being a preventer requires knowing a fair amount about an awful lot of things. He does basic forensic analysis, tracking, wild driving, and of course lots of fighting and shooting. LOTS of those. I heard a reviewer compare him to Jason Bourne, but that’s wrong, even aside from my own personal conviction that no one will ever play a better super spy/assassin than Matt Damon. It’s wrong because he’s a lot meaner than Jason Bourne. I understand the whole vengeful, desperate father thing, of course, but when he shoots an innocent bystander for no real reason (though to be fair, he does only shoot to wound), I kind of didn’t like him for a little while.
It turns into a pretty typical action movie after the big threat scene — not great, but again, when you’ve got a cast and crew who know what they’re doing, that’s okay. Liam has an unfortunate knack for getting his next lead killed before they can give up any information, so he’s often more like Bond than Bourne, stumbling into the bad guys’ strongholds and trusting to some combination of skill, luck, and the righteousness of his cause to get him through. And there’s a car chase through a construction site, which is either the largest construction site in the world, or involved an awful lot of going round and round in circles.
But aside from these nitpicks, it’s a good, solid, three-idol movie. Poor Famke really is wasted as the worried mother, because this is a one-man show. You don’t need to know anything except that Liam’s mad, and you shouldn’t get in his way. Just sit back with the popcorn, let the stunts wash all over you, and enjoy.

A few more hours in, and there’s a nice trumpet line, and I love how the trill with the ornament turned out in the violas.

I’m getting the solo violin playing better, but the pulse of the piece isn’t here yet.

I’ve decided to start sharing a project in progress, and a rather nasty one at that.
For some reason, I’ve wanted to record Danse Macabre from Saint-Saens.
Here’s what it sounded like after about 4 hours…

I started with pizzicato violin… and a lot of other pizz from the string sections…
Then I figured my working method was impossible – and started entering notes from the score, instead of from that I was listening to.
I know, in retrospect – the other way is crazy. Turns out the opening was indeed a harp!
I couldn’t get the turns to work with my flute sample, so I didn’t even put them in.

Dun DUN!
I still don’t know if I’ll be able to get the resonance on the violin open double stops.
Am I speaking English?

And… just a few hours ago – to measure 101 or thereabouts.
I replaced the flute, and but back in the ornaments. It is better, but still bad… and I think I have to double check my notes in the pizzicato section around 45 seconds in… something feels wrong there.

Onward to Measure 502! Estimated arrival time… end of the month.
I’m such an optimist.

If you thought Daniel Craig was being too ruthless as James Bond, you’d better stay away from this movie. He’s still got the machine gun, still got the pretty girl, but he’s kind of even colder here. Of course, this is wartime.
Let me back up a little. Defiance is based on the true story of the Bielski brothers during World War II. I read a book about them, so I was fully prepared to judge this movie pretty harshly for lack of accuracy… but as it turns out, they did okay, surprisingly. Historically, the four brothers — Tuvia (Daniel Craig), Zus (Leiv Shrieber), Asael (Jamie Bell), and Aron (George MacKay) — were Jews living in Belorus when the Germans invaded in 1941. They weren’t quite the most law-abiding of citizens, especially Zus, the wildest brother, who half-terrorized everyone in their village. At first, like most, they tried to adjust to life under their new government, but when the crackdown against Jews grew worse and their parents and wives were killed, they turned slowly into unlikely heroes.
The movie skips over most of that setup, of course, making Zus a little less wild, and throws us right into the action as the brothers flee into the forest. They grew up in the woods, practically, and plan to hide there, perhaps raiding the Germans now and then, until things die down. But of course things don’t die down, and soon they find other refugees in the woods — first four or five at a time, then ten or twenty. All are fleeing, starving Jews, most women, the elderly, or children, who have nowhere else to go; and the brothers, especially Tuvia, don’t have the heart to leave them behind. They’re still starving, but at least they’re starving together.
Slowly, a village grows deep among the trees. But they’re torn between staying mobile, being a more traditional resistance force; or welcoming anyone regardless of their ability to fight — Zus and Tuvia, respectively, are the champions of each idea. Everyone works as and how they can, and gradually, they form into a community, able once more to be proud of their heritage, free from the race laws and constant fear of summary execution found everywhere else in Belorus.
The fundamental problem remains, though — the actual partisans, mainly Russian, laugh at them, calling them bandits, and refuse to work with them except in the most reluctant way. With so many noncombatants, sometimes over a thousand, they don’t really count as a fighting force, and have to fight extra hard to get the food and medicine they need to survive. After yet another quarrel between the two eldest escalates into a nearly deadly fistfight, Zus decides he’s had enough, and turns to the Russian partisans to help him scratch his itch to kill the invaders.

When they’re not beating each others’ brains out, they’re really very fond of each other.

The village in the forest is kind of the star of the picture, though. They literally create a town, twice, after having to flee one camp. At war’s end, there were over 1200 people living there, thriving, with a barbershop, school, nursery, and blacksmith shop. Tuvia’s determination not to leave anyone behind, regardless of their health or strength, reaches its height when he helps to empty a nearby city’s Jewish ghetto, leading hundreds to safety. He quickly becomes a legend, another Moses there to save everyone from their oppressors.
But Tuvia hates all that. He’s just a regular guy as far as he’s concerned, whose plan to save his family suddenly became a plan to save every Jew in the country when he wasn’t paying attention. More than once, he seems confused, faintly annoyed, or some combination thereof when he realizes that everyone is looking at him for all the answers. I can’t blame him. That would give me some sort of complex.
A solid three and a quarter idols here. It isn’t a documentary by a long shot, and sometimes, like a lot of historical pictures do, it tries to jam way too many events into too short a time — even though it’s over two hours long. But it catches the spirit of the times in many ways, and gives a good sense of some small part of the fears and trials these people faced. For the details, I recommend either The Bielski Brothers by Peter Duffy, or Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, but the movie does give a good overall feel for the events. That’s probably because the woman who wrote the second book, which the film is based on, is the mother of one of the movie’s producers; so probably no one dared to wander too far from the text.