Historically interesting, but bad casting

Rating: 7/10 (2 May 2009)

I found Valkyrie to be historically interesting and well-told, but there were problems with the casting. Most of the people in the cast were fine actors, but the problem is that they picked some of the most English of the English actors -- people whose Englishness is central to their presence like Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp, and Bill Nighy, which makes for a strange contrast when we're asked to believe that they're German.
My complaint isn't to do with accents: I'd much rather actors act in their native accent when playing foreign characters than speak English with a German accent, which is rather insulting to the audience. It's that the actors they chose are so quintessentially English.
Tom Cruise did an OK job, I think. But I was frequently reminded of his character in "The Firm". It was a very similar role when you look at what's really going on in both movies.