Walkyrie

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.

Claus von Stauffenberg, a man famous for being a German Army Officer who came closest to a assassinating Adolf Hitler. Von Stauffenberg is the closest figure Germany has to a national hero during World War 2. It's surprising that it took so long for a film to be made, nor to be a German film.

Valkyrie is a test project for the newly reformed United Artists under Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner. It was also a smaller project for Bryan Singer after doing 3 superhero films and reunite Singer and Christoper McQuarrie for the first time after the Usual Suspects.

Valkyrie starts with a prelogue sequence in North Africa. Von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) is a disaffected officer who is questioning Hitler's regime and that he was leading Germany to the path of destruction. During a British air raid he is injured badly, loosing an eye, his right hand and two fingers on his left hand. He can no longer serve on the front line. In 1943 General Henning von Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh) fails in his attempt to assassin Hitler and the German Resistance loss an army officer to help with operations. Von Stauffenberg is recruited in the resistance and the General Staff. He comes up with the Valkyrie plan which was to make the assassination of Hitler look like an SS plot, and get the army to launch a coup to 'protect' the Nazi regime. Von Stauffenberg is the only man who could get close to Hitler because he was the Chief-of-Staff for the Reserve Army General. The film is split into three major parts, the planning, the assassination attempt and the attempted coup.

Singer was able to bring in a very stylist approach of direction. I enjoy Singer's films and he was able to show his skills again. He is able to get an excellent cast, including Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, Terrence Stamp and Tom Wilkingson to name a few. However, he shot the film in the style of a thriller, which was interesting, but being a historical film with most people knowing the outcome already takes away the suspense. But Singer did make an enjoyable film. The film has a strong script

Valkyrie is a strong, enjoyable film. It is not Singer's best but he can still pull it of.

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.

It was curious timing to release this film on Christmas Day. As David Letterman quipped on last night's monologue: "Nothing says Holidays like a good Nazi death plot".

Release timing not withstanding, this is a very powerful movie and by all accounts comports with the historical record. There was little embellishment for dramatic effect here. Hitler murder conspiracy dramas are abundant in Hollywood, but this one actually happened and was nearly successful. The story is riveting, and even though the outcome was already known (at least to anyone who had a rudimentary knowledge of WWII), the excitement level was sustained by not really knowing the precise timing of events or, more importantly, who would be spared in the end.

Tom Cruise was very good in the lead role as the chief conspirator (Col. von Stauffenberg). The rest of the cast was first rate, including Tom Wilkinson as Gen'l Fromm, a Nazi head honcho who was playing both sides of the fence, and many other notable actors, such as Kenneth Branagh and Terence Stamp, all excellent.

For fans of "Downfall", the German film documenting Hitler's final week in the bunker (one of the all time great WWII films and #75 on the IMDb top 250), there were two actors from that movie playing in this one. Thomas Kretschmann and Christian Berkel both were key figures in "Downfall" had supporting roles in this film.

For people with an interest in WWII or history in general, this is one film worth checking out.

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.