Valkyrie is a meticulous thriller based on a large-scale conspiracy within the German army to assassinate Hitler, leading to a failed bombing attempt on July 20, 1944. At the center of the plot was Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, played here by Tom Cruise as the moving force behind the attempted coup, which led to 700 arrests and 200 executions, including von Stauffenberg's. Because we know Hitler survived, the suspense is centered in the minds of the participants, who call up the Reserve Army and actually arrest SS officials before discovering that their bomb did not kill its target. Considering they were planning high treason with the risk of certain death, the conspirators seem remarkably willing to speak almost openly of their contempt for …show more content…
I'm at a loss to explain the blizzard of negative advance buzz fired at him for the effrontery of playing a half-blind, one-armed Nazi hero. Two factors may be to blame: (a) Cruise has attracted so much publicity by some of his own behavior (using Oprah's couch as a trampoline) that anything he does sincerely seems fair game for mockery, and (b) movie publicity is now driven by gossip, scandal and the eagerness of fanboys and girls to attract attention by posing as critics of movies they've almost certainly not seen. Now that the movie is here, the buzz is irrelevant, but may do residual damage. The way Singer shows it, the plot had no chance of succeeding. The military men and high-ranking officers that Stauffenberg recruits to help him are played by Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp, Bill Nighy and Eddie Izzard, none of whom are very convincing as Nazi hierarchs. Nighy is at his best when he’s elegantly wasted, when he’s being jaundiced and droll; here, with the future of Europe at stake, he looks as if he wishes he could hide in the toilets. Izzard, jowly and sporting spectacles that rekindle memories of Gerald Campion’s Billy Bunter, seems pained at not being able to launch into one of his flights of comic