Main character miscast

Rating: 6/10 (24 August 2012)

Yes. Tom Cruise was miscast in this film. The story of the Valkyrie plot against Hitler has been told many times and there's pretty much no derivation from the actual events in this film. The problem arises with the casting of Tom Cruise. He simply did not or could not carry the powerful character of Claus Von Stauffenberg and the entire film suffered from it. Everyone else in the film did a creditable job and thus the film doesn't actually venture into the "bad" category, but it's close. I was expecting a powerful performance from Cruise but it just isn't there in this case. Heck, Cruise even bears a slight resemblance to Von Stauffenberg. Overall, I was quite disappointed in what should have been a good film. Perhaps others will see it differently, but I'd skip it if reruns of nearly anything else were on TV.