Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (December 26, 2024)
Tom Cruise as a Nazi? I suppose a more ludicrous casting choice can be imagined, but it’s tough.
Nonetheless, that’s what 2008’s Valkyrie brought us: a sieg-heiling Cruise – with an eyepatch, to boot!
I try to keep an open mind, though, and the story of Valkyrie offers enough intrigue to entice me. Based on true events, the film takes us to Germany smack dab in the middle of World War II.
We meet Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Cruise), a German officer who grows increasingly convinced that Hitler’s cause is detrimental to the good of the world. Severely injured on an African battlefield, Stauffenberg ends up back in Germany and he comes to the attention of Major-General Henning von Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh).
Tresckow led one unsuccessful plot to kill Hitler and wants to make another attempt. He brings Stauffenberg into the scheme, and our colonel comes up with a twist: the conspirators will prompt the activation of a plan called “Valkyrie” which will bring a military government into power.
To ensure success, the plot also involves the assassination of Hitler. None of this will come easily, but Stauffenberg participates to help save Germany – and the world.
Movies based on historical events run into one crucial problem: we know how they’ll end. The Titanic will sink, Harvey Milk will die, and Apollo 13 will land safely. In Valkyrie, we confront a historical inevitability: the plot to assassinate Hitler will fail.
As we learned from many of those earlier films, the oppressive nature of facts doesn’t mean the films can’t become thrilling and dramatic. Unfortunately, in the case of Valkyrie, any excitement or drama fall firmly into the theoretical construct, as they rarely materialize during this turgid piece.
How can a plot to kill the most notorious madman of the last century be so darned dull? I’m not sure, but Valkyrie fails to bring anything dynamic to this tale.
The first half of the film consists of little more than bureaucratic shenanigans and feels like a lot of paper-pushing. The failed bomb goes off about 60 percent of the way into the movie, but it doesn’t manage to create excitement either, largely because much of the remaining film consists of… more bureaucratic activities.
Of course, the movie needs to stay fairly true to the actual events, so there’s only so much that can be done here. Nonetheless, the result remains awfully dull.
The filmmakers do their best to goose some excitement with loud sound effects and dramatic music, but these go nowhere. If anything, their urgency seems desperate and reinforces the tedious nature of the story.
Many have criticized the muddled multi-national nature of the cast. Yes, it does seem silly to mix American, British, German and other accents all under the same allegedly Deutsch umbrella, but I accept that as a movie convention. Besides, it’s not like Valkyrie is the first flick to take liberties in this domain.
Though I don’t mind the linguistic absurdities, I do feel disappointed that none of the actors bring much to their roles. Valkyrie actually boasts a solid little cast.
In addition to Cruise and Branagh, we find talents such as Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp and Bill Nighy. All fall into the movie’s vortex of boredom and fail to elevate the material.
Poor Cruise becomes especially hamstrung by the material. We’re supposed to see Stauffenberg as a heroic figure, but he’s too simple-minded for that, and it doesn’t help that he looks like a stooge through much of the film’s second half.
As he runs around and insists that Hitler’s dead, we see him as a dope. If the audience didn’t know that Hitler survived, these scenes might work, but since we’re aware of Stauffenberg’s mistaken belief, he looks like an idiot.
I get the impression that Valkyrie aims for a movie-going demographic of ignoramuses. In regard to Hitler’s fate, it does its best to keep us in suspense.
If a viewer wonders what happened to Der Fuehrer, then that viewer doesn’t know history. I’m sure plenty of folks fall into that category, and those people probably will get more from the film. I don’t think it’s a good sign when filmmakers design their work for a subset of ignorant folks.
To add to the disappointment, Valkyrie offered the first collaboration between director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie since 1995’s The Usual Suspects. What the heck happened to these guys?
Suspects was a terrific neo noir, but no signs of those clever filmmakers appears here. We waited 13 years for a Singer/McQuarrie reunion and this was the best they could do?
Maybe they’ll eventually collaborate on a film in which Keyser Soze tries to kill Hitler. That’d be fiction, but it’d probably be more interesting than Valkyrie. There’s an interesting story to be told here, but this consistently boring movie fails to capitalize on the natural material.
