Fine drama

Rating: 8/10 (10 February 2009)

A short time ago, I watched a fine New Zealand made drama called "Until Proved Innocent". A good story, well told, about a man in jail for a crime he didn't commit. It's real potency though, for me, was undone by the fact that I knew the outcome. It was all over the news. Couldn't help it. There's nothing the filmmakers can do about this of course, and not everyone will be bothered about knowing the ending. In this instance, I suppose, it was all about the means, rather than the end.
Many a drama is let down, isn't it, by giving the game away too early and a great movie can fall off the rails in the final twenty minutes. Can I think of a good example. 'course not, but they exist, and the point here is, happily, Valkyrie is not one of them.
It tells the story of an assassination attempt on German leader Adolf Hitler in 1944 bu a group of patriotic nationalists (not Nazis) fearful that their Fuhrer will irrevocably destroy not only their homeland and it's people but Europe as well (if he hadn't already).
Not everyone will know Hitler's eventual fate in a bunker 8 months after the events in Valkyrie took place. and for those, the dramatic effect will be amplified. I knew the end and it didn't matter at all. What I didn't know how we were going to get there. Here, it is all about the journey. The plot, the players, the setbacks, the failure, the fallout and finally the fates of those involved. Like a rail trip through the alps. So much to enjoy en route.
And just where "Until Proved Innocent" lacked real dramatic thwack, Valkyrie has enough tension to press the most relaxed individual into breathing exercises.
Some of the lead performances teeter on the edge of melodrama, but this is a minor quibble at most. Tom Cruise is fine, but he is of course, Tom Cruise. Not his fault, and as usual, he does deliver the goods, but it does make a portrayal of German officer Colonel Stauffenberg more difficult to grab in a film of this dramatic ilk. Wilkinson, Stamp and Branagh do what is required, but the real stars are the supporting cast whose various turns evoke great sympathy of people torn between duty and honour in crazy times.