Valkyrie (2008)

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): During Adolf Hitler’s reign as head of the German state, there were many resistance movements that sought to remove him from power. But these groups were usually unorganized, and the members had no real way of gaining access to Hitler in order to carry out their assassination attempts. The closest any group came was in 1944 when a number of high-ranking army officials banded together in an effort to “save Germany” before the Allies could destroy the country.

At the head of the group was Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (played by Tom Cruise), a war veteran who had lost an eye and several fingers from his left hand while serving in Tunisia. Von Stauffenberg was recruited into the resistance movement by General Friedrich Olbrich (Bill Nighy), who was looking to replace a member that had been arrested. Von Stauffenberg joins the likes of General Ludwig Beck (Terence Stamp), Erwin von Witzleben (David Schofield), and Dr. Carl Goerdeler (Kevin McNally).

After studying the situation, Von Stauffenberg concludes that in order to truly take down Hitler’s regime, the SS army has to be contained as well. The best way to do this, he realizes, is to assassinate Hitler and then initiate Operation Valkyrie, a contingency plan meant to mobilize the Reserve Army and stabilize Berlin in the event of a national emergency.

Once the resistance modify the official Operation Valkyrie plan to their advantage and get Hitler (David Bamber) to sign off on it, the only thing left to do is assassinate the man. Von Stauffenberg takes this upon himself, and brings a suitcase bomb into a meeting with Hitler’s inner circle. The bomb detonates, but, as it was moved at the last minute, it merely injured Hitler instead of killing him.

But von Stauffenberg was convinced that Hitler was dead, and at any rate, it was too late to turn back. So the resistance tried to put Operation Valkyrie into effect while they could. Though the reserves were indeed mobilized, it didn’t take long for Hitler and his men to recover and quell the potential uprising in its tracks. Within 24 hours the plotters were tracked down and arrested, and most, including von Stauffenberg, were subsequently executed.

My Reaction: Ever since Tom Cruise became a late-night talk show punchline, I have been trying to avoid his films. His public persona just bugs me and prevents me from enjoying his movies. Add to that the fact that he hasn’t had a hit in ages, and I guess it’s not surprising that I haven’t seen anything since 2002′s Minority Report. But I’d heard some decent things about Valkyrie, and since I like true stories, I decided to bite the bullet and give this one a try.

I was very surprised at how much I liked this film! Sure, I’d read some reviews that derided the choice of Tom Cruise to play a German officer, sans accent, but that didn’t bother me at all. In fact, I thought Cruise’s performance was the strongest in the entire movie! Those who ridiculed him in this particular role are dead wrong.

Anyway, as for the film itself, we already knew that the plan to kill Hitler didn’t succeed, so the tension and suspense had to come from other plot points. I enjoyed the inside look at what the resistance members went through while setting up and carrying out their plan, and, by the time they were all arrested, I realized I had come to care about the characters’ fates.

Overall, I thought Valkyrie was a very good film — much better than I expected, given the tone of some professional reviews I’d read beforehand. I don’t know how historically accurate it is, but that wasn’t my primary purpose in renting the DVD. I wanted to become absorbed in a good story, and that’s precisely what happened. I give this film 4 stars out of 5.