Valkyrie (2008)

Am I Missing Something?

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

A rare modern true story of ww2 that captures the feeling of being there that many war films fall short. Tense, brave, heroic, unbelievable!

Valkyrie (2008)Plot In A Paragraph: A dramatization of the 20 July assassination and political coup plot by desperate renegade German Army officers against Hitler during World War II.I had long since stopped listening to critics, and decided if I fancied a movie, based on its merits!! Shamefully I passed on this and only watched it last year when I stumbled across it starting on TV in the early hours of the morning.Considering most people know the outcome of the movie, Director Bryan Singer has created a movie that is surprisingly suspenseful and tense. All of the cast are superb, Terrance Stamp, Jamie Parker, Carice Van Outen, Bill Nighy and Tom Wilkinson (I was glad to see what happened to his character in real life) stand out. Cruise on the other hand plays it perfectly understated. A real less is more performance. Other than the fact it was popular to bash Cruise at the time, I don't get the hate aimed at him for this movie. Valkyrie grossed $80 million at the domestic box office to end the year, the 35th highest grossing movie of 2008. The film grossed 200 million dollars worldwide making it the fifth highest-grossing World War II film of all-time.

As informative as it is intriguing, Valkyrie is a finely carved, swiftly paced & well acted historical account that takes a leaflet out of the countless unforgettable events which occurred during the Second World War, and brings it to cinematic life in a tense & gripping fashion but what hinders it from making the desired impact is Tom Cruise's own star presence.Set in 1944 during World War II, Valkyrie chronicles the path to July 20 plot, a failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler, that was concocted by Claus von Stauffenberg & his associates in order to remove the Nazi Party from power. The plot briefly glimpses over Stauffenberg's early life before focusing on the plans & preparations to assassinate the Führer & end the war.Directed by Bryan Singer (best known for The Usual Suspects & X-Men series), Valkyrie unfolds at breakneck speed once the board is set but it tries to handle too many characters at once, which often results in confusions regarding who's supposed to be playing what role in the game plan. Singer's direction exhibits a kinetic flair, and he is able to keep the viewers invested in his story.The screenplay does take notes from historical records but it also takes artistic license with a few events to dramatise the narrative but it's restrained to a level that doesn't affect the main premise. The period-specific detailing is a welcome attribute, the glossy camera-work only adds more shine to its images, Editing is slick for the most part, and John Ottman chips in with a score that does its required job.Coming to the performances, the cast consists of Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Thomas Kretschmann & others, and the supporting cast play their respective roles in a responsible manner. Cruise himself delivers a strong input as Stauffenberg but he's unable to get rid of his star status, and is never truly convincing as the given character. Lastly, whoever played Hitler was just awful.On an overall scale, Valkyrie is no masterpiece but it does bring to light the legacy of Claus von Stauffenberg & his noble cause to show the world that not everyone in Germany shared Hitler's ideals. The film works as a thriller, is thoroughly engaging, and continues getting better as plot progresses before finishing on a powerful note but it's not impressive enough to garner a spot amongst the finest examples of its genre. Definitely worth a shot.

Over the past couple of years, I have greatly struggled with English and American actors playing Nazis and not speaking German and/or having a German accent. It's just so unrealistic. Especially Tom Cruise. I cannot think of a more American-accented individual that they could have put in the role of Claus von Stauffenberg. The best part of it all is that all of the writing is in German. How curious. Having said that, the plot of this movie is very good (especially cause this did happen in real life). So going into it, I was very excited to see a movie with a lot of action and suspense. And it did have lots of action and suspense.Thus, the main flaw of this film was the acting. I just couldn't get over it. And I know that this is probably a personal thing, but they could have at least tried a German accent. Sigh.