Movie – The Defiant ones

Movie – The Defiant ones

Score : 7/10 

Year : 1958

Director:  Stanley Kramer 

Cinematography: Sam Leavitt

Music: Ernest Gold

Country: USA

Language: English 

Duration: 1h36

Writers: Nederick Young & Harold Jacob Smith
Full cast (IMDB)

For a change, the french title for this movie is far more eloquent & fitting : the chain - that chain which binds two convicts, a while racist man, attached to a black man, who must learn to get along, in order to elude capture.

These men are portrayed by Tony Curtis (John 'Joker' Jackson, aka Charlie Potato) and Sidney Poitier (Noah Cullen), where racial tensions mingle with the desire to flee and evade a team led by Theodor Bikel (Sheriff Max Muller). 

I find this movie to be quite different in depicting the convicts as more than their crimes, by giving them back stories with few questions answered and many more mysteries unanswered, giving them a human face right from the Sheriff's replies to others in pursuit of the two convicts who wanted to treat them the same way they'd treat animals in a hunt, and the Sheriff's reply is that they are humans to be pursued with dignity. 

Speciesism aside in this aspect, the movie does depict character evolution albeit limited in the time it takes from start to conclusion, with a tied-in plot regarding Cullen's song. 

In their run , Joker & Cullen run in  mud and rocky terrain ; they are rained upon and have to elude other bigots along their escape route and one can wonder about some of the people they meet, on whom is more or less a criminal in their actions. 

Cinematography had some excellent moments but also too many scenes from behind objects/plants .

Acting is convincing and since am not into rock'n'roll, music was less enjoyable than other movies for me. 

This movie didn't tarry in giving us the plot right from the start, and the pace was very well balanced. Dialogues are sharp, and often add notes of comic relief. You come to wait to see how it ends, and then it does, in an unexpected way. 

The defiant ones really should have been called like in french, the chain. It was  enjoyable and different in approach. It seems to have influenced other movies and tv-episodes, exploring cooperation of different people in order to survive - unless it was already influenced by previous movies ?