Dah da da da dah, dah de de de dah...

Rating: 10/10 (2 September 2009)

I am exceedingly disappointed. I was expecting Tom "Bonzo" Cruise to be playing heroic all American hero Joe von Stauffenberg, who infiltrates German high command, kills Hitler, liberates Germany from the evil British Nazis and single handedly wins WWII for Truth, Justice and the American Way.
Instead I got an excellent thriller which manages to be both tense and exciting despite the fact that we all know exactly how it is going to end.
On a side note, I want to see more movies involving eye-patch-wearing Nazi's, after all, the eye-patched Nazi is surely the gold-standard of Nazidom.
Spoiler
Colonel von Stauffenberg (Cruise) returns from North Africa missing an eye, a hand and a couple of fingers convinced that the war is lost and peace must be made. He is recruited by von Tresckow (a criminally underused Brannagh) to join the staff of fellow German Resistance leader General Olbrecht (Nighy). Stuaffenberg's plan is to kill Hitler and subvert Operation Valkyrie to allow the conspirators to seize power, in effect using Hitler's own plan against him.
After one failed attempt von Stauffenberg successfully detonates a bomb at Hitler's command bunker, the Wolfs-Lair, which he believes has killed Hitler and returns to Berlin to discover that Olbrecht has refused to initial Valkyrie without confirmation that Hitler is dead. As a result the plan is three hours late. Before it is complete communications have been restored to the command bunker and rumours start to circulate that Hitler is alive. From this point on von Stauffenberg's coup is doomed as Hitler is able to personally assures military commanders and the country as a whole that he is alive, exposing Stauffenberg's plot and halting Valkyrie in it's tracks. Soon afterward von Stauffenberg and the other key conspirators are shot by firing squad after a hasty court-martial.
End Spoiler
The (mostly British) cast is absolutely top-notch with great turns by Bill Nighy, Kenneth Brannagh, Tom Wilkinson and even Eddie Izzard (doing well in a non-comic role). Nighy's conflicted, indecisive Olbrecht is stands out particularly but probably only because he has the most screen time after Cruise. Despite thinking that he's about as sane as a Lord Such on mescaline, I have to admit that Cruise can act and here he is excellent as the embittered war hero, determined that treason is the only solution.
If the film has a problem it is that the ending is so inevitable and feels so unnecessary (due to all the conspirators missed opportunities) that I found myself thinking that I'd almost have rather seen the film about what would have happened if the plot had succeeded, or even, dare I say it, Joe Stauffenberg as one man vs. the English Reich.