Valkyrie (***)

It is 1943, and Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise), a Nazi colonel severely wounded in the North Africa campaign, takes charge of a plot to kill Hitler. A dozen such plots have failed before, but they didn’t have Tom Cruise—sorry, Stauffenberg—in charge.

Cruise brings his usual cockiness to the role. He seems too modern, and too American, but as the role is written, it suits his usual mien. The colonel rarely even bothers with the “Heil Hitler” greeting, which makes you wonder why the fuhrer’s loyalists weren’t onto him. He is, in fact, a fairly one-dimensional character. This dovetails with the general lack of moral ambiguity in the story. The conspirators who urge caution are made to seem as foolish as the colonel is heroic, so that I was slightly worried the filmmakers would change history and have the plot succeed. There are several other characters, played by good actors like Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, and Tom Wilkinson, but they didn’t stick in my memory. (Cruise’s wife, incidentally, is played by Carice van Houten, who got to show off far more range in another Nazi-era thriller, the superior Black Book.)

Still, the thriller thrills. Director Bryan Singer uses sound cues like the hum of teletype machines to convey a sense of urgency. The script, co-written by Christopher McQuarrie, who collaborated with Singer on The Usual Suspects, precisely reveals the way the plotters planned to turn an existing Nazi emergency plan—Project Valkyrie—against the regime itself. The climax, in which it becomes unclear whether the Führer is dead or alive, is a reminder that information and belief are—as much as weapons—the tools of power. Yes, this is a fairly well-crafted thriller, but not more.

Perhaps it was felt that we needed no reminder of Nazi horrors, but without knowing that history you could actually watch Valkyrie and wonder what the plotters hated about Hitler and the Nazis, except perhaps a growing feeling that they has already lost the war. Valkyrie does remind us that not all Germans supported the Nazis, although you could forget that with the mixture of English and American (Cruise’s) accent. (Using a clever device I remember from The Hunt for Red October, Cruise begins speaking German and then segues into English.) What could have made the movie more compelling, though, is a look into why these men—even Stauffenberg himself—came to oppose the Reich. Other than the setting, and the ending—no, history is not altered—little distinguishes the movie from a good, but generic, Hollywood suspense drama.

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viewed 12/9/08 (screening at Ritz 5); reviewed 12/9/08 and 1/26/09