Workmanlike account of the untold (or anyhow unfilmed) true story of a 20th-century Moses and his two brothers, who sheltered hundreds of Jews from the Nazis in the forests of Belorussia, such dark days that color itself evidently went into hiding, leaving behind only a greeny or occasionally orangey residue. Daniel Craig, a blond blue-eyed Jew like Paul Newman in Exodus (“He is a Jew?” wonders aloud a plain-spoken child), delivers heroic declarations on the order of “Our revenge is to live” and “We may be hunted like animals, but we will not become animals.” Natural lovelies emerge undimmed from the rustic privations to pair up with the heroes. A schoolteacher and an intellectual carry on a running sideshow of comical bickering. And Liev Schreiber, the hottest-headed of the three brothers, not content just to dodge the Nazis but itching to engage them, defects to the Red Army. The big hooray moment when he returns to the fold in the nick of time can be seen coming from so far off that we’re surprised only that it didn’t arrive sooner. Somehow, even with violin solos by Joshua Bell to put you in mind of Schindler’s List, the saga doesn’t quite sweep you up and away. But it at least stirs interest in the real story. With Jamie Bell, Allan Corduner, Alexa Davalos, and Jodhi May; directed by Edward Zwick. (2008) — Duncan Shepherd