Tense, Gripping, Well-Acted Thriller Of Plot To Assassinate Hitler

Rating: 6/10 (28 November 2012)

Claus von Stauffenberg, a Colonel in the German army in World War II, is disillusioned with the conflict and the Nazi regime. He joins a circle of influential military leaders who have conceived an intricate plot to stage a coup by blowing up the Reichskanzler ...
I really enjoyed this well made thriller and was surprised at the extent to which it is historically accurate (Cruise even looks very similar to Stauffenberg). Like most people I expect, I knew of the bomb plot and how close it came to succeeding (from The Desert Fox), but I was unaware of the details of the post-assassination overthrow of the SS and the whole concept of Operation Walküre. Where the movie really scores for me is in the depiction of the planning for the coup, the misinformation snafu in the immediate aftermath of the explosion and the subsequent gradual collapse of the plot over the course of some hours as the initial support for the conspirators gradually withers away. As with Day Of The Jackal, we know in advance that the mission does not succeed, and thus the suspense comes from the way in which the story reaches its conclusion, which Singer carefully constructs in great detail without ever losing the drama and desperation of the situation. This is done through gripping little vignettes, such as the scenes in the Central Communication Office where the head official (a niftily nervous performance by Webb) receives contradictory telex messages and has to decide which to circulate, or the boy-who-cried-wolf mobilisation of the Reserve Army, as well as standard dramatic pathos. It's such an incredible story that you assume it's made up, but even the more outrageous moments - such as when Stauffenberg immediately confesses his seditious tendencies to his new adjutant - actually happened. The movie also wisely avoids overt moralising; it does reflect on what motivated the resistance but paints them realistically; experienced military and political men who know the war is unwinnable and their Führer's ideology is the raving of a madman. Cruise is excellent in the lead, with strong support from a mostly British cast, and the visuals are first-rate throughout. In several ways this a dour and unexciting movie - it's very talky, there's no humour and it ends in tragedy for the heroes. But by simply being honest to the story its telling, it's both a fascinating moral dilemma and a sobering history lesson. A fine grown-up war film.