A Superior Film with Superb Ensemble Acting and Attention to Details

Rating: 8/10 (18 October 2013)

A film with the presence of such fine actors as Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp, and yes Tom Cruise, would be expected to entertain, and this one certainly does. On its own, as a war thriller, it is perfectly understandable and interesting. But better yet, the film is scrupulously accurate with details of the plot, small details of the officers' uniforms (something at this late stage that every war film should get right, but which few do), and in general capturing the surrealistic air of 1940s Germany under the rule of a madman. Cruise has taken a lot of undeserved guff for his religious beliefs. What he chooses to believe is up to him. The bottom line is that he is a superb actor, and manages to convey the great strain that Colonel Stauffenberg must have felt as the plot moved forward. Here was an officer only recently escaped from death on the battlefield, having lost much blood, an arm, an eye, and parts of his remaining hand, yet doggedly pursuing his goal of rescuing the moral center of Germany. The oath a German officer takes has been described as a nearly physical bond, and Hitler had cleverly converted the Wehrmacht's oath into one given to him directly. Breaking such an oath is a painful thing to a German officer, even when the oath has been given to a monster. Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators had the courage to relinquish that oath in favor of a larger morality. In so doing, they saved the honor of Germany, even if in what in the end was a rather pathetic way. From that small seed of honorable behavior, among others (e.g. The White Rose) has grown today's democracy, the bulwark of a free Western Europe. This film would make a good double feature with "Sophie Scholl, The Final Days".