Very good

Rating: 8/10 (5 July 2009)

Great production values, historical accuracy, and fine acting can be found in "Valkyrie," a 2008 film starring Tom Cruise, Terrance Stamp, Tom Wilkinson, Kenneth Branagh, and Eddie Izzard. Tom Cruise played Claus von Stauffenberg, and one of the actors in a small role is actually von Stauffenberg's grandson. In the movie, Claus' wife Nina (Carice von Houten) is pregnant with the actor's mother.
There's no point in going through the story - it was one of something like 15 plots to assassinate Hitler, and the third try for von Stauffenberg,a man from a well-known family and a strict Catholic who never became a member of the Nazi party.
Two points, both referenced in a review on this site. The reviewer who wrote that kids walked out of the movie saying they were surprised by it because they thought Hitler was going to die - shame on their teachers. It reminds me of the review of "13 Days" on this site that said the Kenny O'Donnell character, one of Kennedy's most important advisors, played by Kevin Costner, was fictional. Right, and they used White House transcripts and just stuck him in there. It is awful, I agree.
The second point, referenced by the same reviewer and undoubtedly by others, was about the accents. I'm going to disagree on that point, though I get what he was saying - everyone should have been British or American, not some of both.
The acting rule is, when people are in their native country, such as Germans in Germany, it's assumed they're speaking their own language, not English with an accent. Therefore, one doesn't need an accent. As far as having both Brits and Americans in the cast, I refer you to "Das Boot" which was in German, but some of the actors were from Austria, some of them were from varying parts of Germany - in short, lots of dialects. So to have people speaking English in a movie where there are different accents is really quite realistic.
Though, if you know anything at all about history, you know how this movie ends, it's still very suspenseful. I'm not a fan of Tom Cruise - I find his acting very external most of the time - but he does okay, he isn't afraid to surround himself with excellent people, and his makeup is perfect. I thought the film looked authentic (though black and white is always better for films set in the '40s), and, from what I've read, historically right on, including the big scene where von Stauffenberg puts his plan in motion.
Someone else commented that Americans can't understand the enormity of what von Stauffenberg was planning, and therefore, the film doesn't work, but again, I disagree. As a viewer, I certainly felt the terror and the enormity of the plan. One had to be really desperate to agree to it. And plenty of Germans were.