A Total Disappointment and Poor Way to Portray Historic Figures

Rating: 2/10 (19 December 2008)

This is a movie which shows what happens when writers and directors do not trust their audience. Ultimately, Tom Cruise will get either praise or blame for what happens to it.
I can't blame Tom Cruise too much for this one. Both the writers and director went in to this with the mistaken notion that the audience has little knowledge of the subject matter. In fact, there are many books and documentaries about July 20 and Col. Claus von Stauffenberg. They decided to minimize character development and motivations in favor of trying to make it into a thriller. They failed because they didn't develop any of the characters to the point where an audience could understand the motivations for what they where seeing. Why didn't Stauffenberg trust the older members of the conspiracy other than the stereotypical lack of trust a younger, more driven career military man has for his elders? The audience may know Stauffenberg, but Goerdeler, von Treskow, and Beck not so much.
There is a major historical error towards the beginning. When Hitler visited the Russian Front at Vinnitsa, von Trescow and his aide, Fabian von Schlabrendorff, prepare a bomb disguised as brandy bottles. This occurred on 21 March 1943 and was known as Operation Flash. They get Colonel Brandt to put this bomb on Hitler's plane inside a "case" of brandy. The intent is to blow up Hitler's plane on its way back to his HQ. The bomb was a dud and had to be recovered. The movie shows von Trescow going to Berlin and retrieving it. In fact, it was von Schlabrendorff, who isn't identified (the billing is "Trescow's aide") who went to the Wolf's Lair at Rastenburg, a far more dangerous mission. This omission damages the credibility of the film. Von Schlabrendorff was arrested after Valkyrie failed and suffered horrible torture. Miraculously he survived the war due to an Allied bombing attack that destroyed The People's Court and killed Chief Judge Roland Freisler. Much of what we know about the anti-Hitler conspiracies and resistance is due to von Schlabrendorff's testimony and book written after the war. For more about this event and Fabian von Schlabrendorff, see http://www.history.com/this-day-in- history/another-plot-to-kill-Hitler-foiled .
Another production error is to make everyone speak with either a British or American accent. The actor who played Mertz von Quirnheim, Christian Berkel, a German actor who turned in a marvelous performance as Dr. Schenk in "Downfall," is made to speak with an American accent that sounds like a bad dubbing job from a 1960s era Japanese monster flick or a spaghetti western. If everyone else can speak with their natural voices, why can't he?
If Tom Cruise is to bear any responsibility for the many production problems this movie has, it is that he gave the writers and director too much leeway. I wrote on several message boards that he exhibits a range of emotion from Z to Z. Ultimately, that is a director's choice. Tom Cruise has given many powerful performances and is a far better actor than this performance. Stauffenberg, by all the accounts I have read going back to Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich," was a dynamic personality with a great deal of both charm and charisma. Normally, that would be right in Cruise's wheelhouse. Here, even when he is in a confrontational scene, the power is simply not there. Rather, it is almost robotic. I was hoping the makers of "Valkyrie" had seen "Downfall," fleshed out the characters and through that let the suspense flow. Instead, they went with old Hollywood stereotypes of how Germans behave.
As someone who has studied 20th Century Germany, I thought this movie gives the audience neither heat nor light. Therefore, it is simply a poor effort.