"We Must Show The World That Not All Of Us Are Like Him."

Rating: 8/10 (4 July 2011)

It was the plot that could have changed the course of the Second World War. On July 20th, 1944 a group of Germans opposed to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and led by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg detonated a bomb at Hitler's eastern front headquarters before they launched a coup. Bryan Singer's 2008 film Valkyrie is the Hollywood film that dramatizes that plot. Now for the big questions: is it a good history lesson and is it a good film?
Leading the film's cast is Hollywood actor Tom Cruise as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. In a way Cruise was a perfect choice for the role as he bares a striking resemblance to the real life Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Other then that, Cruise seems to have been miscast in the role. Cruise has never been one of the world's greatest actors and in Valkyrie that fact is apparent. Though Cruise wisely underplays through much of the film but there are moments when he just seems to be overacting if not melodramatic at times such as when he screams "Heil Hitler!" at General Fromm or his overacted nervousness when setting the bomb. It doesn't help that Cruise is cast alongside some of the best character actors in the world which makes those very things all the more obvious. Cruise's performance then can all only be called mixed then.
The rest of the cast is superb. There's the performance of the actors portraying Stauffenberg's various fellow conspirators including Bill Nighy as General Olbricht, Christian Berkel as Colonel von Quirnheim, Terence Stamp as General Beck, Eddie Izzard as Fellgiebel, Jamie Parker as Stauffenberg's adjutant and a short but memorable turn from Kenneth Branagh as General von Tresckow. Those imposing them include Tom Wilinson as the fence sitting General Fromm, Tom Hollander as the ever suspicious Colonel Brandt, Kenneth Cranham as Field Marshal Keitel and of course David Bamber as Hitler himself. There are also some good supporting performances from Carice van Houten as Stauffenberg's wife Nina and the various children who add a personal dimension to this historical event. The result is a well-acted film from most of its cast.
A historical film relies heavily on its production values to set the era and mood in which it is set. Both the production design and the costumes go a long way to establishing the reality of the film though of course there are moments (such as the church seen early in the film) when things are changed just a bit for dramatic effect. The cinematography of Newton Thomas Sigel, while not evocative of the era specifically, nevertheless does a fine job of giving the film a strong sense of atmosphere and mood, especially in the build up the plot's executions. The success of the film as a historical thriller is helped out immensely by one of the best scores to date from composer John Ottman who also does a good job editing the film as well. The production values are superb in their recreation of Second World War Germany and setting the mood of the film as a thriller.
Valkyrie is, first and foremost, a thriller albeit one with a historical setting. The script from Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander sets that out and director Bryan Singer uses it to the film's advantage. Once the film first ten minutes or so that shows us both Stauffenberg's questioning of Hitler and his injury in North Africa, the film becomes a constantly tense piece of work as first one plot fails, then planning begins on another plot and onwards the film goes. It's a film well-suited to Singer and even better is that, as a film, it is a well written thriller as well.
The question remains though: is it a good history lesson? For the most part it is just that and it's a serious one at that. It gets across what the plot was, what it set out to do and who the men were behind it all. It shows the moments of moral uncertainty, indecision and at times downright misfortune that threatened the plot and its plotters. Being a film it of course condenses more then a year's worth of events into two hours and this means that certain events (such as Stauffenberg drawing inspiration for the plot from listening to Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries which the real Stauffenberg disliked) are created for dramatic purposes. For the most part though the film accurately portrays events as they happened albeit in condensed form.
So does Valkyrie succeed as both a film and as a history lesson then? For the most part the answer is yes to both questions. Yet the miscasting of Tom Cruise in the all important role of Colonel von Stauffenberg is something that hurts the film quite a bit. As a result the film is a good one but one wonders if it couldn't have been better somehow. But as a historical thriller, there's no doubt that Valkyrie is a success.