Real heroes deserve wide audience

Rating: 9/10 (2 January 2009)

This film is about real heroes in an heroic action that is little known outside Germany and deserves a wide audience for that reason alone. Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) and Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh) never waver, and their courage and conviction are truly inspiring.
But the film also captures the ambivalence of a conspiracy, because it also includes people who are not heroes. Olbricht's (Bill Nighy) vacillation may have made the difference between success and failure. Fromm's (Tom Wilkinson, brilliant as always) prevarication is abhorrent, but perhaps the most common of all stances.
The wonderful coming to life of the whole event shows again the magic of cinema. The attention to detail -- the planes, the vehicles, the uniforms, the settings -- pays off in transporting the viewer into the event. We literally become eyewitnesses to history. And it is moving that the final scene is played in the very Bender Block courtyard where the real event took place.
Is Cruise perfect? No. It is a shame that the actor cannot be lost in the character in the same way that he was in Tropic Thunder. Yes, it's the accent, but also the mannerisms, the attitude. Stauffenberg was a hero, but he was not a Top Gun. But the movie may not have been made without Cruise's participation and apparently the locations may not have as authentic without his help, and he does look somewhat like Stauffenberg, and he did try. Everyone else, as many comments have noted, was terrific and very close to perfect.