Explosive Valkyrie a Thrilling Mission Accomplished
Not all Germans were Nazis. Not all of them believed in the policies of their Führer Adolf Hitler. Some of them, even though it went directly against their oaths as soldiers and officers, even had the guts to fight back.
Tom Cruise goes to war in United Artists' Valkyrie
Such a man was Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise). He believed Hitler’s outrages were “a stain on the honor of the German Army,” and as a career military man and a passionate nationalist in love with his country he knew that he needed to act. The Führer must dies, the fate of all Germany – and maybe the rest of the world – resting on it.
Based on a little known yet absolutely stunning true story, director Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie is an old-school Hollywood WWII throwback filled with tension and suspense. While the outcome is never in doubt (can’t change historical fact, after all) getting there is so exhilarating and fast-paced it almost hardly mattered that the filmmakers and his team of talented craftsmen have manufactured a ticking clock thriller chronicling a failure.
Not that there aren’t problems in regards to that very fact. The film never achieves the shattering emotional response I felt it was looking for, the fact we know how all this ends long before the plan to assassinate Hitler has even begun diluting its impact. It also doesn’t help that this attempt, known as the July 20 Plot, is so massively expansive in its planning and execution there’s just too much material for a two hour narrative to contain. There are a lot of threads left dangling here, pulling any one of them enough to unravel the whole thing into a disjointed ball of disappointing irrelevance.
Thankfully this never happens. Singer and his The Usual Suspects compatriot Christopher McQuarrie (co-writing with Nathan Alexander) have still managed to craft themselves one heck of an entertaining thrill ride. As the screws turn tighter and tighter and the plan inches ever-so closer to success the tension generated is gloriously palpable. There is an urgent you-are-there magnetism, each fateful mistake and misstep foreshadowing the group’s ultimate demise only adding to slowly building excitement.
It helps that the all-star supporting cast is more than up for the challenge. Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Terrence Stamp, Thomas Kretschmann, Carice van Houten (so amazing in 2007’s Black Book) and Eddie Izzard may have small roles but that doesn’t mean they still don’t make the most of them. Each invests their respective character with an intriguingly complicated soul, making all of their collective actions one way or the other definitely worthy of discovery.
As for Cruise, he’s in solid form here, and while he’s not exactly 100-percent believable as a German soldier (more Ethan Hunt than Henrich Lehmann-Willenbrock), he’s just as much so as the majority of the rest of the cast. What he does do is invest Stauffenberg with a driven urgency that’s impossible to dismiss, his quest almost becoming self-sacrificial apology to the rest of the world now under the impression his country has become a bastion for genocidal evildoers.
What isn’t up for discussion is the performance of veteran British character actor Bill Nighy. Best known around these parts for playing vampire leader Viktor in the Underworld fantasies, his portrayal of German General Friedrich Olbricht is absolutely sensational. He dominates every seen he’s in, the furl of his brow or the sunken droop of an eyelid all the information required to let us know how much of a cuckold to the system this wannabe revolutionary truly is. His is the most tragic character, the one who broke my heart clean through, and while many of the catastrophic mistakes could probably be laid at his doorstep the man’s growing sadness towards the inevitable still emotionally wrecked me all the same.
In final analysis, it almost goes without saying that this isn’t a film that’s going to change anyone’s life. It doesn’t offer insights into WWII, the Holocaust or the men and women in Germany who stood up against the system then those we probably knew beforehand. But it is entertaining, the freakishly strong second half in particular, and while the mission itself ended in failure Valkyrie the movie is nothing less than an explosively fast and furious success.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
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