Nice attempt, but too simplistic character portrayal.

Rating: 6/10 (30 April 2009)

In case you wonder why the film kind of leaves you cold, here's my guess: the protagonist, Stauffenberg, is lacking any inner conflict. As generally the characters Mr. Cruise plays seem to be in doubt max 5 mins of the respective film, from whence on they just try to do the right thing, against all odds, and either succeed or fail.
So to be perfectly clear, committing high treason - which this film is about - would not be something you once make a decision on and then just go forward without any further qualm. And especially not so when you were officer in the German army, each member of which was obliged to take an oath on the Fuehrer's person. Unfortunately, this major conflict just gets reflected in some of the co-conspirators, where it's generally portrayed as a weakness which Stauffenberg helps them to overcome.
Which, once again, leaves us with a one dimensional hero who fails mainly due to bad luck and lack of proper support from his surroundings. Sorry, but for me that just doesn't fly. For example, with that many attempts that were made on Hitler's life, one could wonder why not a single one succeeded. Maybe the perpetrators did, in the end, lack the determination. So that, as in this case, just one of two bombs would go off and thus not kill the dictator.
Such an angle, or any angle more differentiating, like showing us the assassin fighting himself, fighting against his trained code of honor and against all he has been taught, and maybe even losing against himself rather than bad luck would have made for a much more interesting drama. I guess that would have been too much to ask from Mr. Cruise anyway though.
So in the end, I give this film credits for being fair and sufficiently accurate. It's still kind of shallow.
While at it, for those interested in the actual events I can recommend the docudrama Operation Walküre by Franz Peter Wirth. Jolly good stuff and, to the mature audience, way more involving than this film, I'm sorry to say.