Good movie, strange accents

Rating: 7/10 (22 March 2009)

Valkryie, a movie that takes on the closest assassination to Adolf Hitler, being such a huge history buff, sadly I knew how this was going to end. I love walking out of the theater hearing the teenagers go "What the heck?! I thought Hitler was going to die!", I bow my head in shame. I know that there were a lot of people who had a thing about Tom Cruise being the leading man, which I have to admit I had a few questions, but you cannot deny despite his madness, he is a good actor over all. I admit he can be cocky, but he got the film done with pretty decent taste. I just have to laugh though because in this film we have every kind of accent there is: American, English, German, EVEN POLISH! A Polish Nazi? LOL, I'm sure that history must be proud of this movie. But over all it's a decent representation of the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler.
During World War II, Wehrmacht Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg is severely wounded in Tunisia, and is evacuated home to Nazi Germany. Meanwhile, Major General Henning von Tresckow attempts to assassinate Adolf Hitler by smuggling a bomb aboard the Führer's private airplane. The bomb, however, fails to detonate and Tresckow safely retrieves it to conceal his intentions. After learning that the Gestapo has arrested General Hans Oster, he orders General Olbricht to find a replacement. After recruiting von Stauffenberg into the German Resistance, Olbricht delivers von Stauffenberg to a meeting of the secret committee which has coordinated previous attempts on Hitler's life. The members include General Ludwig Beck, Dr. Carl Goerdeler , and Erwin von Witzleben. The Colonel is stunned to learn that no plans exist for after Hitler's assassination. After a bombing raid on Berlin, he lights upon using the plan Operation Valkyrie, which involves the deployment of the Reserve Army to maintain order in the event of a national emergency. The plotters carefully redraft the plan so that they can dismantle the Nazi regime after assassinating Hitler, by overthrowing the SS and imprisoning Hitler's closest advisors. Realizing that only General Fromm, the head of the Reserve Army, can initiate Valkyrie, they offer him a position as head of the Wehrmacht in a Post-Nazi Germany and recruit him into the fold: however, Fromm initially refuses. With the rewritten plan needing to be signed off by Hitler himself, von Stauffenberg visits the Führer at his Berghof estate in Bavaria. In the presence of his inner circle, Hitler praises von Stauffenberg's heroism in North Africa not realizing the Colonel's true intentions.
Besides the accents and the A-list actors, honestly this could've been a made for TV film. It's not exactly the hit I think the studio was hoping for. Normally most WWII films are a big hit, but the problem was the advertising, the trailer I felt was a bit inappropriate, and the actors, I felt that this if not made in German should have just been with English actors or all American because all the accents were throwing me off. But the film is definitely worth the watch, I just suggest if you are ignorant when it comes to history, please for the love of God, do some research before watching a film like this, not just because Tom Cruise is in it.
7/10