Cruise Is Okay, But The Story Sags Far Too Much

Rating: 6/10 (28 December 2008)

I really wanted to see this movie. All my life I have been fascinated by the daring of the anti-Nazi conspirators -- especially the aristocratic, chivalrous Von Stauffenberg, who in today's Germany (especially in the German military) is given the worshipful adoration and veneration of Martin Luther King, Davy Crockett, and John F. Kennedy combined.
Cruise never gets the chance to show us what made this shining knight shine, what made this time-bomb for goodness really tick. We don't get to see him cut loose as a soldier, machine gunning Tommies and slugging it out in the desert sands. We don't get to see him blinded by a flash of insight as a Jewish child is kicked into the gutter or an elderly rabbi is forced to scrub the pavement with his face. We don't even get to see him do a passable bedroom scene with his foxy wife.
Instead we get an hour of stupendously dull plotting, where Cruise is forced to run with droopy, flaccid character actors like Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, and assorted other Englishmen who look pathetically out of place in any uniform, in any army, at any time. The movie really telegraphs the fact that all these conspirators lack the ruthlessness and determination to fight fire with fire and shoot to kill the Nazi menace. Only Tom Wilkinson, as the shifty General Fromm, and Eddie Izzard as the well-meaning communications officer, give us some sense of the real moral complexity of the plotters, not to mention the terrifying agony of these brave men who risked torture and death.
Finally, long after it's too late, in the last half hour we get a taste of suspenseful drama, as Von Stauffenberg flies back to Berlin and tries to bluff the uprising to victory even as Hitler prepares his gruesome revenge. It's painfully revealing that Cruise, working the phone banks like a celebrity at a telethon, is far more believable than he is playing the cold-eyed assassin. "What's that you say, general? Yes, that's right, we're in charge now. Don't forget, you heard it here first! Yes, that's right, I'm in charge, because I just said so! Can we count on you for your support? Gee whiz, why not?" He's believable, but more like a frat boy running a bake sale than a gallant officer risking his life. Charming, but not quite appropriate to the situation.
One final note: watch for Christan Berkel and Thomas Kirtschmann, two genuine German actors who were both superb in the death of Hitler classic UNTERGANG. If the whole UNTERGANG cast had been here, along with the director and the scriptwriter, this movie might have been a classic too. Instead it's just a so-so vehicle for Tom Cruise.