Valiant but a tad square.

Rating: 7/10 (29 December 2008)

The plot to kill Hitler is certainly worth a good film. They slipped it into the "Night of the Generals," as a sub plot, but now it gets full focus. While it is a watchable film, and it follows the history quite accurately, it ends up being a docudrama with not much creativity or tension.
What could have added meat to the plot could have been to have given the growth of anti Hitler sentiment more attention, as well as the cultural clash between the officer class and the Nazis.
Many critics are down on Cruise. I think he's a capable actor, but to have him as the sole guy with an American accent - surrounded by mostly Brits - is rather ludicrous, but it didn't distract me too much.
It would have been nice if they had used some of the many capable German/Austrian actors. Speaking English, of course. Can't have subtitles for an American film! By now we should be well past the tradition of having Brits only playing Nazis. Actors are so good at accents these days, so if your going to use English speaking actors why not use German accents? The other problem I have with the film is the focus on the guys who wanted to bet rid of Hitler as "good guys." Von Stauffenberg was known to have made anti semitic comments in his letters to his wife, and I'm sure many in the officer class were anti Semites as well. Their effort to rid themselves of Hitler was not simply a noble cause, it was a plot by one class to get back some of their tarnished honor. Honor tarnished by the Nazis and the SS. Honor which certainly pushed Germany into it's attempt to create an empire. The movie completely side stepped this paradox, and it is the movies insistence on showing history in simplistic terms that lessens it's impact.