For the People, They Are Doing Something No One Will Ever Dream About

Rating: 7/10 (14 February 2009)

Finally, director Bryan Singer has brought us something that is different from his previous comic adaptations.
Entitled Valkyrie, he is putting a true story of the assassination of Adolf Hilter onto the big screen, telling us a World War 2 story not many people would know. Not forgetting that casting Tom Cruise as the leading character Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg boasts a large selling point to the historical thriller.
Together with 2 British veteran Kenneth Branagh and Bill Nighy as Major-General Henning Von Tresckow and General Friedrich Olbricht, the trio forms a team to make us of Operation Valkyrie, a emergency plan activated by Adolf Hilter when a coup takes place. Using the operation as the backdrop of an assassination, the trio are trying to take over Adolf Hilter when assassination is a success, so as to prevent the Germans from suffering under the hands of the Adolf Hilter under his regime, and spared from the punishments of the Allies should the Allies taken over Germany.
In the previous comic adaptations by Singer, his movies features loads of explosion and action, which are the key factors contributing to the box office success. However, Singer skips the explosion and actions in Valkyrie. Keeping them to the minimum, he grab the attention of the audience by keeping the pace of the story tight and not lengthy.
The film begins with Claus (Cruise) severely wounded during an attack in North Africa, leaving him with an blind eye and a broken hand. When he feels unjust on how he was treated by the Nazi party for his efforts in the war, he was recruited by General Friedrich (Nighy) into a plan to assassinate Adolf Hitler. At the same time, both are recruiting more military personnel's who are opposing Adolf Hitler.
Knowing that the assassination could lead him to glory if he succeed, dead if it fails, he send his children and his beloved wife Nina (Carice Van Houten from Paul Verhoeven's Black Book) off before he began his assassination.
All of these were kept short and direct, where audience were spared from details overloaded, leading to boredom and loss of concentration on the film. At the same time, details of the coup and the assassination were delivered in a smooth flow. Little explosions and exchange of fire were included in the film, thus sparing the audience from the unnecessary violence.
Most would compare Valkyrie with Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002), where both story shares the same idea: to assassinate a country's leader who brings misery and endless war. As the presentation of the story is concern, Valkyrie provided a detailed historical facts where one can expect the assassination to be a failure. Hero, on the other hand, focuses on a fiction tale on the assassination of Emperor Qin Shihuang, China's first emperor.
While Zhang Yimou presents the assassination of the Emperor in a much exaggerated sword fighting scenes, glittered with colorful and artistic visuals, the 90 minutes drama it has lose some audience who are seriously into a good story of a failed assassination. Valkyrie presents to us in a very direct, no frills presentation where human emotions and conflicts will keep your fingers crossed at all times. Even though one will expect Operation Valkyrie to be a failure, Singer spares us the pain that some would go thru in Hero.
Cruise's role as Colonel Stauffenberg is a deja vu of his partner Carice Van Houten's previous role in Black Book. While both roles shares the same goal, Cruise seems to have failed to catch the emotions on his revenge for the country making him a handicap. More rather, his aggressive behavior makes him feel more like a general wanting to hold the dictatorship to rule a country.
One will be disappointed if you want more of Houten's appearance after her remarkable performances in Black Book. Here, being the only leading female character, her appearance and lines were kept minimal. Kenneth Branagh and Bill Nighy, on the other hand, gains more exposure to the film.
Overall, Operation Valkyrie might have failed, but it will definitely be something that people will remember, as a coup that overthrows Adolf Hitler, and a historical thriller that display's Singer's talent in his resume.