Valkyrie

Forget all the negative hype surrounding Valkyrie, because I assure you it is false. Bryan Singer has made a well-crafted thriller that kept me and my family on the edge of our seats until the end – even though we all know what the story's unfortunate outcome. Also, many tabloids were making this out to be the movie that would permanently cripple the career of Tom Cruise. This is entirely false. Cruise delivers a fine performance, and this hatred I can only assume is related to his rather odd personal life. Tom Cruise is as strong of an actor as he ever was, and I won't let something like turning Oprah's couch into a playground deny the fact that the man has talent, and is a truly passionate actor (and seriously, he does have a slight resemblance to Stauffenberg).

The movie is based on the last of fifteen known attempts on the life of German dictator Adolf Hitler (I'm sure everyone will have him in a nice "Five Most Evil People" list), and has Tom Cruise playing Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who of course was the key player in the assassination attempt. Ultimately this attempt failed (as we all know Hitler would die by suicide nine months later), but that doesn't keep Valkyrie from being an addictively engaging film.

Every member of the cast does their part well, not jockeying for superiority in any way. More importantly Cruise does not grandstand in this movie, fading in with the rest of the cast, rather than trying to stand above them like you'd expect, given his past films. Cruise gives a performance similar to 2005's War of the Worlds, where he does a good performance, but he never tries to overpower the other members of the cast. In Valkyrie Tom Cruise is a being a good team player, not trying to steal any glory, and never once does he overact the part.

Using very little CGI Valkyrie is also a wonderful film to look at. The vintage automobiles and aircrafts make this film have a distinct authentic flair that few other war films have (CGI looks like it was only used for the climatic assassination attempt). You can look at this and tell that this is the real deal, with the production team putting careful care into how they want this film to look, unlike most Blockbuster films that try and inflate every aspect of the film rather than aim for reality. Like the performance by Tom Cruise they don't try and overpower the audience with special effects, they simply let the characters slip into the realistic settings.

Also, the complaints about the accents I truly feel are desperate attempts to bash Cruise's performance. It was director Bryan Singer's concept to not use false German accents, and not that of Cruise, or the primarily British cast. I agree with Singer's concept that if feels false, and inaccurate to have people speak in English, but with foreign accents. I know several Germans in real life, and they do not sound very "German" when they speak in English, because the accent is not intended for the English language. I personally feel the desire for English being spoken in German accents comes from decades of WWII films where we've categorized every-single member of the German army, and by them speaking in that accent only is to cliché them and separate them from American audiences. They can speak in German accents, but only if they're speaking in German, because if they aren't it seems to be a tool to keep your common American moviegoer from relating to the characters.

Don't go into Valkyrie expecting to be greeted with a horrifically bad film that you will be able to poke fun at with friends. The movie has been released, and I feel the rumors, and negative hype of been proved decisively false. This isn't a movie to kill Cruise's career, but it won't help him regain love in the American community either (as previously mentioned he doesn't shine so much as mix in with the rest of the cast). It is a very enjoyable dramatization of a true event, and I don't think the material could have been handled much better, even with a full German cast, because Singer's style and method of conveying this story are all very well-done.

Go out and enjoy this dramatization of one of the darkest periods of human history. It is worth every second of your time, and all though it isn't Oscar-worthy it is certainly worth two-hours of your time.

First, I want to say that some time ago I learned to distrust critics and instead read the reviews here on IMDb. I've never been misled, even when an equal number of viewers liked and disliked the same movie because that let me know there was a matter of taste in play, and that's fine. Sometimes a movie pleases everyone, but that's so rare I cant really think of one. People have different tastes and that's good. But the value of IMDb reviews is that they are based on a genuine response to the movie - not a bias, or some other agenda.

For example, the Fox critic Roger Friedman listed this movie as one of the worst of 2008 - without having seen the movie. That's right. He rated it without seeing it. It was a classic and reprehensible case of bias and perhaps even bigotry since he was engaging in Tom Cruise bashing which is usually practiced in conjunction with dissing Tom's religion.

So I don't trust critics to tell the truth or give an unbiased review.

I saw Valkyrie and enjoyed it immensely. I've studied the Hitler period and was familiar with most of the events but the movie educated me while it thrilled and entertained me. It is a movie I was happy to take my teen-aged children to see because it also educated and entertained them. I thought the cast did a great job. The script was outstanding and the direction excellent. Tom Cruise gave a dimension to Von Stauffenberg that deepened my understanding of the events. The supporting cast were brilliant.

I highly recommend it.

PS. It's some time since I wrote this review and I took thirty minutes tonight to read the other reviews on this movie, not surprisingly they are mostly very positive and unanimous in praising it. Interestingly, the critics, including the one named above, who trashed the movie without even seeing it, obviously did so in an effort to kill it at the box office. While many other reviewers noted this too, I'd like to point out that those critics and possibly some of the people who 'dont like Tom Cruise because of his weird religion' are actually following the same path that made it possible for Hitler to kill off millions of Jews who also had a 'weird religion'. Considering the historical background of Valkyrie I find that quite ironical.

This story is based on real incidents happened in Germany in 1944 during the Hitler regime of World War II. German Colonel Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) gets injured in a war at South Africa. He loses one eye, one palm and two fingers on the other hand. Stauffenberg feels that Hitler is doing more harm to Germany than any help. There is a group of officers who feel the same. He joins them and conspires and executes a plot to assassinate Hitler using Operation Valkyrie which holds key to the usage of reserved army in crisis.

WE KNOW THE CLIMAX: All of us knew that Hitler final end came through the act of suicide. Hence we knew in advance that he was not assassinated. And the entire movie runs on an attempt to assassinate Hitler. It requires tremendous narrative from the director if the audiences already knew the climax. Bryan Singer who directed the most fascinating 'The Usual Suspects' comes up with another riveting thriller drama in the form of 'Valkyrie'.

It is more fascinating because a part of German Army believes that Germany's reputation is going down because of Hitler. This film shows the humanistic soldiers who are under director command of Hitler. I loved the way Hitler is shown. The entire film is shot from the point of view of Stauffenberg. Hence Hitler is shown for a few seconds in the entire movie – that's too in flashes without revealing the entire body.

TAILPIECE: Valkyrie is a tautly made psychological thriller with interesting background and is based on real incidents involving Hitler's final months. This film has linear narration with no confusion.

"Not only is Singer's film-making aesthetically frustrating (lacking coherent visual rhythm) but his juvenile regard of the July 20, 1944, plot to kill Hitler -- one of 15 documented attempts -- is intellectually insulting..." New York Press The above is the usual negative commentary you'll see regarding this film. Critics bashed it for being insulting, unoriginal, and unmoving. Let me make some corrections for them so that they can save a little face.

I'm no Tom Cruise fan. A buddy of mine, too, is so peeved at Cruise that he refuses to watch anything the man stars in. Mostly this has to do with Cruise's personal life and beliefs (just watch an episode of South Park to see how some people view him and you'll see what I mean). People have similar feelings toward Mel Gibson ...but I digress.

VALKYRIE, as most of you probably now know, is the final of 15 attempts on Hitler's life. Shortly after this (about nine months) he committed suicide in his bunker. But this is about the one time where it almost succeeded. I'd heard about this attempt and read bits of it in history classes, but never really gave it much thought. I mean, the mustachioed murderer offed himself, so that was that. But what gives this film much of its umpf! is how true to history the story sticks (that and how closely many of the actors resemble their true-life counterparts). It is also riveting coming from director Bryan Singer (who did one of my all-time favorite films, THE USUAL SUSPECTS).

Tom Cruise did a great job (probably one of his best since COLLATERAL and MINORITY REPORT). His Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg character was spot-on ...with one exception that seems to be a sticking point for many: his accent. It is true that none of the actors attempts a German cadence in their speech. Did this bother me? No. I think it would have bothered me if they'd TRIED to do one and made it sound forced or ridiculous. So there's that...

What makes the film a success was Cruise's rock solid performance and the amazing supporting cast: Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Terrence Stamp, and Eddie Izzard just to sprinkle a few names.

It is also noteworthy to mention that they filmed nearly everything on-location and in the exact same spots where the original incidents took place, including the subsequent trials and executions of the conspirators. Phenomenal authenticity.

If the cadence of their speech bothered some, then I failed to see how the cadence of the film could. It was absolutely perfect. It gradually built up suspense (even though we knew how it would end for the conspirators), and never slowed, right up until the very end. I am forced to use a cliché here in that "I was on the edge of my seat" throughout the second half of the film.

So if you're looking to tear apart Tom Cruise, you might look at WAR OF THE WORLDS or LEGEND. But not here.

I'm not really a fan of Tom Cruise so I let this film go past me until it came to TV because I just thought it screamed "star vehicle" too loudly. In reality I was probably a bit too hasty with that call because Valkyrie is a solid little film that delivers an interesting story with the predictable Hollywood liberty but does so in a rather satisfying manner. Having decided to put my personal feelings on Cruise to one side, I did still think that the film would struggle because ultimately I already knew the ending (spoiler: the plot to assassinate Hitler isn't successful) and it would therefore not be able to hook me in. I think in a way this was correct but not really in the way that I thought.

In terms of just straight up narrative flow the film does engage; OK it maybe takes a while to establish the main players and get things moving forward but ultimately, while I knew they would fail, I was interested to see what happens, how it happens and what they did. On this level I enjoyed the film and although it was a full two hours long I wasn't bored by it and it felt like it was as long as it should have been. Where I thought it didn't quite pull it off is in the portrayal of why the conspirators felt they had to act. In this regard I didn't feel their desperation and I didn't get a tangible sense of how bad things were at this point in the war for Germany; I know from other films etc how bad things were but this film didn't really do that so much as simply say that things were bad. Likewise I didn't get a feel for the emotions behind the plot and instead I got the impression that the film was taking it as read that everyone dislikes Hitler and therefore that would be all the understanding we would need – this is perhaps partly true but the film needed this as part of it, not an external thing brought by modern audiences.

Singer does a really good job in terms of direction. There isn't a huge amount of action here but the tension is good and it is very well delivered to be a lot more effective than I thought it would be (again, the issue over knowing the ending). The cast is deep in quality but, like me, many will get stuck at Cruise. He does an OK job by which I mean he doesn't overplay or make it all about him the personality. The downside of this is that he doesn't bring much character out either and I didn't see much of a person in his character – he does have presence though, which helps a lot. The supporting cast is rich and their presence also helps the film since you cannot turn left or right without bumping into a quality British actor. Branagh, Nighy, Wilkinson, Stamp, Izzard, Hollander and so on – they all do solid work and are a boon to the film.

Valkyrie isn't a classic by any means but nor is it the ego-driven Cruise film I expected. Instead it is a solidly entertaining thriller based on fact that manages to engage even though you know the outcome. Cruise doesn't get in the way and the support cast make it stronger by their quality and their number.