Valkyrie

How the German Resistance movement tried to assassinate Hitler and institute a coup against the Nazis. Thriller starring Tom Cruise and directed by Bryan Singer
Is Tom Cruise so compromised as an actor by the baggage of mega-stardom and his controversial beliefs that his very presence prevents suspension of disbelief? Or do the unbelievers in Tom Cruise underestimate the value of his courage in bringing original movies to the world? And when Tom Cruise is wearing a Nazi uniform and sporting an eye-patch, how does our suspension of disbelief fare then? The success or failure of Valkyrie hinges on the star's radioactivity - a deadly zealous energy that makes him too hot for the rest of the human race to handle. From the beginning, Valkyrie has its work cut out to convince us that Tom Cruise is Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg, German war hero and aristocrat, who is so appalled by Hitler's Germany that he is willing to kill the Fuhrer himself. If you can swallow this proposition in the first five minutes then what follows is a tense and efficient thriller. If not, then you are in for two hours of grotesque inadvertent comedy. Valkyrie's tale of Colonel Von Stauffenberg and his failed attempt on Hitler's life in July 1945 is historically accurate (although Stauffenberg's great nephew has noted - irrelevantly - that Cruise is too short to portray the colonel) and quite brilliant. Hitler has set a reserve army aside. Von Stauffenberg proposes assassinating Hitler and then using this reserve army to arrest the SS and institute a new government Cruise's interpretation of Von Stauffenberg is of a man committed to honourable action, regardless of the terrible consequences to himself and his family. "Action is inevitable," intones Stauffenberg, "as are the consequences." He is prepared to sacrifice everything to show the world that not all Germans support Hitler. If there is one thing even cynics cannot deny about Tom Cruise it is that he is entirely committed to bold action. You wonder how much of Von Stauffenberg's character has been reverse-engineered to play to Cruise's strengths - his indomitability, his Nietzschean will-to-power. Valkyrie's portrayal of the Nazis is not helped by Downfall (2004), Oliver Hirschbiegel's compelling portrait of the last days in Hitler's bunker. In Valkyrie, the Nazi inner circle are cackling grotesques: David Bamber's Hitler is crabby with a lurking ponderous madness. There is little more to them than the villains of Raiders Of The Lost Ark, a long way from evil's compelling complicity portrayed in BBC/HBO's Conspiracy, a cult favourite around these parts in which Kenneth Branagh's SS General Reinhard Heydrich leads the Nazi high command into approving the Final Solution. Kenneth Branagh appears in Valkyrie as the officer who introduces Von Stauffenberg to the German Resistance, proposing him as the military man required to augment the predominately political resistance movement. The conspirators also include British actors Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp and Eddie Izzard. Nighy is the nervy General Friedrich Olbricht, Wilkinson the corrupt General Fromm, and Izzard has a truncated role as Erich Fellgiebel, the General in charge of communications in Hitler's bunker, the Wolf's Lair. The interplay of these plotters holds our interest. We are intrigued to discover if they can go through with their treason. But if you place their Britishness on the same scale as Tom Cruise's can-do ferocity, the film tips toward an Anglo dressing-up party. Director Bryan Singer has taken two previous passes at the Nazis. In Apt Pupil, he directed Ian McKellen as a war criminal hiding in suburban America. And he bravely opened superhero film X-Men with a grim vision of Magneto's childhood experience of the Holocaust. Singer cites his Jewish background as reason for this continuing interest in the Third Reich. Tom Cruise has gone on the record as having a childhood wish to kill Hitler. Reunited with his Usual Suspects scriptwriter Christopher McQuarrie, Valkyrie overcomes our foreknowledge that Hitler survives the assassination attempt with taut storytelling and compelling supporting performances. As with Singer's previous Superman Returns , Valkyrie's technique is admirable but it misses the mark emotionally. The plan to use Hitler's reserve army against him is ingenious and the difficulties executing it demonstrate how vital communications and Murphy's Laws are to any military operation. Your intellect will be engaged even if your gut is not. If you can turn a blind eye to Tom Cruise's problematic baggage, and cover your ears when Von Stauffenberg is described as the only righteous man in Germany, Valkyrie is far from the toxic career-ending disaster it was rumoured to be.
Verdict There were a few good men in Nazi Germany whose heroic failure to kill Hitler showed the world that the nation could be redeemed. There are a few good intentions in Tom Cruise that show the world that, for all his controversial opinions, professional redemption remains a possibility.