Wrong way Valkyrie

Rating: 5/10 (12 July 2009)

The age-old Hollywood problem of how to recreate a famous historical event either through realism or accentuation rears its head again in this Bryan Singer-helmed Tom Cruise-starring depiction of the failed von Stauffenburg assassination attempt on Hitler which, if successful could have changed the direction of the Second World War.
A studier of history like myself, while pleased in a way to see the bravery of Von Stauffenburg and his cohorts recognised in film does however think that a more truthful low-key approach would have served this serious subject matter better. However what we get here is a sort of "Mission Impossible" for the war era with real life characters reduced to Hollywood-created ciphers and while the film acquires a kinetic energy as it moves towards its doomed conclusion, as stated, the film-maker takes the easy option of giving it the big blockbuster treatment, with over-intrusive soundtrack, various skillful but irrelevant camera tricks and worst of all dialogue which rates alongside "Braveheart" and "Pearl Harbour" for (lack of) weight and substance.
On the plus side, the production values are top-notch, with excellent sets, costumes and particularly the utilisation of period motor and flying vehicles. However, we again get the wild assortment of accents as none of the heavyweight UK/US cast attempt even the semblance of a German accent throughout the whole movie (even Hitler!) and yet every printed word on display is in the original German. The acting is okay although Cruise is of course just wrong, wrong, wrong in the central part - I was reminded of Cary Grant in "The Pride and The Passion" or even Errol Flynn as General Custer and nobody else really rises above playing the uniforms - no-one actor appears at any time to really inhabit their role, which is the least I'd say they owe to the memory of this brave band of conspirators.
The impact (no pun intended) of the crucial bomb scene is again weakened by the crassness of the heightened build-up to the event in time-worn thriller-style and whilst the fall-out scenes which follow as the fortunes of the attempted coup flow and inevitably ebb better draw in the viewer, by then the overall effect has been diminished by what has gone before.
Maybe I'm too precious about matters of authentication but I feel the big-budget action-suspense approach taken here works only with fictional stories and that screen adaptations of actual war-time events benefit immeasurably from a more realistic, documentary-style approach. If you want to see my point in action check out "Downfall", a quite brilliant German-language production covering the last days of the Third Reich which manages to harrowingly but engrossingly grip the viewer until the bitter end.