Taut thriller in the WWII vein about a failed plot to kill Hitler...

Rating: 7/10 (27 December 2008)

VALKYRIE accomplishes the mission it sets out to perform within a two hour running time. Under Bryan Singer's direction, it's a taut thriller bearing the outlines of a true story, handling a complex military plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler that depends on split-second timing to succeed. As we all know, it almost works. It's the "almost" factor that gives the film a gripping edge, even though we know the plot fails. The complete story of the events is pared down to make a concise thriller that wastes not a second of screen time.
As Colonel Von Stauffenberg, TOM CRUISE gives an effective performance, given that no more of his background is known or explained fully. He delivers a crisp, tight, forceful performance, bolstered by the fact that others around him do equally convincing jobs. BILL NIGHY, TERENCE STAMP, KENNETH BRANAGH, TOM WILKINSON, THOMAS KRETSCHMANN--these are the most prominent and all of them are splendid in portraying Nazi officers who recognize that Hitler's Germany is not the one they envision for the world, intent on seeing Hitler's Germany crushed and given new leadership.
Photographed on many of the actual location sites in Germany, it's a vivid recreation of the period with excellent use of sets, costumes and explosives. All of the shattering wartime explosions are extremely well crafted, as is the bomb that almost destroys Hitler's conference room.
The pulsating music score gives the film a solid amount of suspense once the plan is underway. This forces the first half of the film to be largely exposition, but none of the exposition is dull. It sets up the story to follow in an intelligent way.
The New York Times movie critic dismissed the film's values and referred to Cruise as "too much Tom Cruise" to be believable in the role. Not true. It's much more serious than that, and the film's tone is totally unlike the style of many of the war movies of the '40s--"Desperate Journey," for example, featuring the antics of the Warner contract players in a film starring Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan about putting one over on the Nazis, which was juvenile nonsense.
It's intelligent and engrossing from beginning to end, an efficient WWII yarn based on true incidents that should be seen and appreciated for what it is--not for bashing Mr. Cruise and whatever tabloid headlines exploit his personal life. It might also inform some of today's teen-agers about an event that actually happened during WWII--at least those teens who are interested in the subject.