Slow and Thorough.

Rating: 6/10 (13 June 2010)

I'd hate to think my mind had been worn to a nubbin by exposure to headlong action movies with exploding fireballs every few minutes and impossible physical feats generated by computers, but this one, though never confusing, seemed like a rather sluggish film. Maybe my synapses HAVE fused.
Tom Cruise is the maimed Colonel von Stauffenberg, scion of an old aristocratic family, who joins a number of other prominent German officers and politicians after the Normandy invasion in a plot, first to usurp Hitler's power, then, later, to blow him up and take over to negotiate a peace with the Allies.
I can imagine that most of it -- not all -- sticks to the historical facts. But in some odd way that's hard to pin down, it lacks spark and tension. The story of Rommel's involvement, in "The Desert Fox", was at least as gripping as this, though less authentic.
Let me take one scene as an example -- when Cruise is first introduced to Hitler. Hitler is having a meeting with Goebels and Goering and the rest of the Black Rebels Motorcycle Club. Cruise is announced, enters, and stands silently at attention at the far end of the room. There is no conversation among the half-dozen others seated in easy chairs across the room. The camera gives us a close up of the back of Hitler's head before he slowly turns to look at Cruise. It aims at the dramatic, yet the power of the scene is kneecapped by its very presentation. The other figures sit as in a tableau, absolutely motionless, wearing slight frowns. Hitler rises as if with lumbago and shuffles over to Cruise to mumble something to him.
There is a complete absence of verve. The director is practically shouting at the viewer -- "Feel AWED!" But the scene is dull. In real life, we wouldn't expect a handful of powerful men to be sitting in silence and staring at one another. We'd expect conversation of some sort, even an occasional chuckle, no matter what the import of the meeting. "Die Wannseekonferenz" was about a meeting that determined the "final solution", the mass murder of Jews and other undesirables, and it lost none of its grip by allowing the figures at the meeting to act like humans instead of cardboard figures.
All in all, it's pretty slow going, although it's informative in many respects. None of the details seem to be skipped or simplified. I can believe the incidents as they take place on screen. And the performances aren't bad, given that the characters are so limited. It might have been a better movie if the director had asked his talent to relax and remember they're playing ordinary organisms who can be tickled into laughter.
I should add that I didn't watch the last quarter hour or so. I knew what had happened and was worried that the film might become too graphic. That was about the last thing I needed.