"Valkyrie," Tom Cruise's history-based thriller about the July 20, 1944, attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, opened December 25 and it succeeded in not changing the bad rumors that had surrounded this film ever since it was first mentioned. In other words, the film is even worse than I expected.
At the height of World War II, a group of high-ranking German officers hatched a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, and seize power of the military command in order to end the war. The operation was codenamed "Valkyrie", for the emergency plan that was meant to be used in case of a revolt against the Nazi government. This plan had been modified by the conspirators to ensure their success, but for various reasons the plot failed when finally carried out on 20 July 1944. The conspirators of the inner circle were shot after a kangaroo trial or sentenced to death soon after.
The July 20, 1944 conspiracy against the Führer is without doubt one of the most compelling narratives to come out of World War II, and, frankly, the less you know about it, the more likely you are to appreciate the film that screenwriters Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander and director Bryan Singer have constructed around it.
Bryan Singer has directed all sorts of movies, from the surprise-ending “The Usual Suspects” to such big-budget blockbusters as “X-Men” and “Superman Returns.”
But it's Cruise who's the center of this film, and though his name doesn't immediately come to mind when thinking of a German officer who's lost fingers, a hand and an eye in combat, the fact that the colonel was likely the most charismatic man in any room, eye patch or not, is something the actor has been able to connect to. But unfortunately he does nothing more throughout the whole movie.
However the movie doesn’t underline the facts related to the sheer historical events and fact that had really happened back in 1944. It’s more of Singer’s personal view, which is not bad as a premise. Maybe that’s why you don’t learn how belated the coup d’état was in “Valkyrie,” which might matter if this big-ticket production with Mr. Cruise in an eye patch and shiny, shiny boots had something to do with reality.
Despite Singer’s rather out of fashion movie habits, his attention to the gloss, gleam and glamour of the image, can be extremely pleasurable, he tends to gild every lily. Hitler (David Bamber) doesn’t need spooky music or low camera angles to be villainous: he just has to “be there.” Mr. Singer’s fondness for exaggeration can even undercut his strongest scenes, as when Stauffenberg visits Hitler to secure approval for the rewritten Valkyrie plan.
The movie also features: a serious-minded character work by Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Izzard, Bill Nighy, Terence Stamp and Tom Wilkinson, therefore managing to drum up a fair degree of tension that it ultimately becomes too much to follow, but it will certainly make the public come to the cinema.
