The fall of 2008 is a great time to be a Nazi, cinema-wise. There’s been a wealth of releases dealing with World War II and Hitler’s Fourth Reich. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Adam Resurrected, The Reader, Good, and Defiance, but the biggest, high profile production has to be the Tom Cruise vehicle Valkyrie. Cruise dons an eyepatch as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg who lost his left eye, right hand, several fingers on his left hand during a campaign in North Africa. Already disillusioned with his Fuhrer and the atrocities committed by the SS, Col. Stauffenberg joins with a secret cadre of similarly disenchanted officers and politicians in a plot to assassinate Hitler. The conspirators plan to take Adolf out with a bomb planted at his headquarters, the Wolf’s Lair. However, the true problem that hadn’t been addressed in previous attempts is what to do afterwards. It is Stauffenberg that hatches the idea to use the reserve army to secure Berlin and arrest members of the SS in order to finalize their coup.
You don’t need to be a history buff to know their plan fails. It’s a testament to the filmmakers that they were able to keep the suspense. Director Bryan Singer is used to working with ensemble casts that might be unwieldy in other hands. Here, he re-teams with his Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie and co-writer Nathan Alexander. Valkyrie doesn’t deal with the deeper issues of war and the concentration camps are only mentioned once throughout the entire film. This is slick Hollywood filmmaking at it’s finest, a stripped down Mission: Impossible without all the gadgets and stunts.
As the lead, Tom Cruise isn’t as terrible as most people assumed. He’s not spectacular, but he’s perfectly adequate, if a tad too American. Luckily for Maverick, he’s got plenty of back-up in the form of an A-list supporting cast of some of the finest actors working today. And best of all, they’re British. Who else can lend credibility and gravitas to a film than an Englishman? Even Hitler is played, quite convincingly, by a British actor (David Bamber). There’s also Kenneth Branagh as Major-Gen. Tresckow who brought Stauffenberg into his circle after failing to kill Hitler with a booby trapped champagne bottle. We’ve got the always excellent Tom Wilkinson as Gen. Fromm who seems content with sitting back and seeing where the chips fall, Terence Stamp as one of the head conspirators, and rounding out the heroes are Bill Nighy and Eddie Izzard in a rare (but great) dramatic role. So that’s Ethan Hunt, Prof. Gilderoy Lockhart, General Zod, Carmine Falcone, Davy Jones, and one of the Disco Boys. How did Hitler survive against those odds?
No one speaks in a German accent by the way as Singer chose to allow his actors to speak with their natural voices. The odd amalgamation of American, British, and German accents is fairly distracting at first, but the story is engrossing enough that you forget all about it.
Cruise’s off-screen shenanigans unfairly soured the film long before it was released. The picture also suffered from several delays and reshoots partly due to film stock being destroyed. Again, that led to some negative buzz which was unfounded. Valkyrie won’t find its way onto any year-end lists, but it’s a good, popcorn thriller.
Rating; ***
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