Valkyrie + the 800 Pound Gorilla

Rating: 7/10 (12 December 2008)

SPOILER ALERT – If you do not at least generally know how Hitler died, read no further.
Valkyrie is billed as a suspense movie, a thriller. My question coming in was how can that be when the audience already knows the final resolution? The answer is that it can't (or at least movie isn't).
I sat forward once or twice, but only in anticipation of when a tipped event would happen, not if. The emotional intensity would be professionally built every so often, but then that big gorilla sitting next to me would elbow my arm again and say "Don't care about these people and their plan, you know what's gonna happen." Valkyrie is not an action movie (whatever of that there is you've already seen in the commercials). Neither is it a character nor values exploration work – the plot is the almost exclusive star. It would have been different if the entire plot and movie weren't so obsessively fixated on whether or not the conspirators will kill Hitler and overthrow the Nazi government, but that is what Singer insists everyone focus on. With the ending already known, Valkyrie does not tap into more than a drop or two of the emotional juice that great movies get gushing.
Don't get me wrong, this movie has some excellent attributes. Visuals are excellent, the scenes grand, a probing score well-utilized, the writing is at times good (even witty) and the British supporting cast is uniformly exceptional (they are the #1 reason to watch this film). But ultimately those behind Valkyrie attempt the wrong route to the audience.
Who knows what would have happened if Singer presented the offer to explore and identify with with any one character, presumably Stauffenberg? Yet even if he did, I don't think you would want to make that attachment...you know what is going to happen.
One of the central sales pitches in the Valkyrie commercials is "what you know is just the beginning." Problem is that what almost all of us know is the end.
PS: only offered me whole number, but my true judgment is a 6.5.