Oh dear...

Rating: 1/10 (24 March 2010)

I wonder if in the history of cinema there has ever been such woeful miscasting. The British contingent - Nighy, Stamp, Branagh and even Eddy Izzard, for Pete's sake - were so stiff upper lip it was a little tough for me to keep a grip on the fact they were meant to be German officers and not British officer POWs in a German stalag, accents apart. Many critics have incidentally criticized the latter in this film but there really is no choice unless we revert to the bad old Hollywood days of evil-sounding "you English pigdog, ve haff vays off making you talk!" Nazi accents or make the film in German with subtitles, which is inconceivable in a Hollywood crowd puller such as this.
But the ever young-looking Tom Cruise as Stauffenberg?! Now that's just silly. Every time I saw him I had to stifle a giggle, especially when he popped that daft glass eye in. Forget the fact that he can't act for toffee.
It's a pity that such a heroic and tragic tale had to be reduced to this. The Nazis foul revenge was only glossed over at the end, well, Tom was lying there dead, wasn't he, so that was that.
But for other reviewers to even mention this film in the same breath as the masterly Downfall is laughable. This story could have done with similar treatment and then it might have been a serious piece of cinema.