I can’t remember the last Tom Cruise movie I enjoyed - Collateral perhaps. Given the right director I think the diminutive Scientologist can shine, but he makes an awful lot of crap so I wasn’t expecting much from Valkyrie. Bryan Singer hasn’t for a second lived up to the promise of The Usual Suspects, probably due to a misguided left step into superhero movies. X Men was a lot of fun, but simple while Superman Returns was just fucking awful.
Thankfully he’s now reunited with writer Christopher McQuarrie and straight away we’re back on track. Cruise is also helped by a great supporting cast - pretty much the cream of the crop of British acting talent. There a few problems, but overall the story of how close Germany came to ridding itself of Hitler is riveting. You get over the lack of actual German language or accents very early on so don’t worry too much about that.
I figured the main problem would be the foreknowledge that obviously the plot to assassinate Hitler failed. However, Singer manages to crank up the tension in just about every scene and once things begin to unravel the movie shifts gear again. You continue to root for the conspirators right until the end, hoping that at least a few of them will get away. It borrows a little from the heist genre - you have all the components of a caper movie - and I think this is where the film wins. It’s very much not a war movie, but rather a drama that unfolds during the war. As such it provides a lot for the cast to get their teeth into.
Cruise is fine and it’s an interesting choice of role, but it’s the smaller characters that light up the screen. Branagh steals the movie (although isn’t in it for as long as I’d like) and even Terrence Stamp is restrained for once. Leading actor aside, we’re treated to a formidable ensemble cast. Tom Wilkinson is superb as ever and Tom Hollander makes you want to punch him in the throat - which is kinda the point. Surprised Hugh Laurie didn’t get thrown into the mix given Singer’s relationship with House.
One weak spot (and purely from a British perspective) is Eddie Izzard. His big scene with Cruise is too similar to his stage show in which he mimics Hollywood actors and seems horribly out of place. There’s also a couple of fast-forwards that show how the plan should come off, but probably because of the presence of Bill Nighy I kept thinking of the similar scenes in Shaun of the Dead:
Take Plane. Go to Wolf’s Lair. Kill Adolph - “Sorry.” - grab Eva, go to Berlin, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over. How’s that for a slice of fried gold?”
There’s also very little for the few actresses to do except look awfully worried. Oddly it’s when we see Hitler’s inner circle that things begin to slip - I’m probably still too much in awe of Downfall, but David Bamber’s Hitler was a very weak impression of Bruno Ganz.
The real surprise for me was just how close the conspirators got to pulling this off. It all came down to a hot day. Of course it’s then difficult not to start thinking of what would have changed in those final months of the war with Hitler dead and Claus von Stauffenberg as Germany’s saviour. There’s very little postscript to the movie, but here’s what happened in reality*.
Valkyrie opens in the UK tomorrow.
*Hat tip to George for the link.
reviewed Germans, Hitler, Shaun of the Dead, Tom Cruise, Valkyrie
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