Valkyrie (Movie Review)

Movie Review
Valkyrie
2008
Starring: Tom Cruise, Bill Nighy
Directed by: Brian Singer

There was a lot of controversy leading up to the release of Valkyrie. Many believed that Tom Cruise was not an appropriate choice to play Claus von Stauffenberg. However, not only was Valkyrie an excellent film but Cruise did a fantastic job in the role. Bryan Singer has a solid resume when it comes to making good films. Valkyrie stands at the top of the list. The story is told extremely well although there are some pacing issues. Still, it is one of the best films in recent memory concerning World War II and is one of the best films of Tom Cruise’s career.

The story of the film centers around Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and his desire to remove Hitler as the leader of Nazi Germany. In 1943, Stauffenberg is heavily wounded in Northern Africa. He loses one hand, two fingers on the other hand and an eye. His growing concern about Hitler’s leadership and Germany’s eventual defeat begins to brew inside him and he decides that the only way to stop Germany from being destroyed is by removing Hitler from power. He joins the German Resistance which is helmed by many prominent German politicians and military men. They conclude that if they are able to assassinate Hitler, they can get the SS and other Nazi leaders arrested and install themselves as the new leadership of Germany.

If you dislike Tom Cruise, you could probably sit and complain about how there could have been better choices than Cruise to play Stauffenberg. However, when it comes down to it, Cruise is fantastic and even if they found someone better to play the role, they wouldn’t have been able to add much more to the film or the role than Cruise did with his performance. You can see the passion burning in Cruise’s eyes while playing a man determined to end Hitler’s reign. It feels as if Cruise had totally immersed himself in the role. Every raw emotion that he displays feels shockingly real. From the sense of anguish after losing his fingers and eye to the sense of excitement leading up to the multiple assassination attempts on Hitler’s life. Of course you might be able to find someone better than Cruise, but that would be nitpicking for the sake of petty nitpicking. Cruise deserves lavish praise for his performance, not scorn.

The film is brilliantly told. The story is exceptionally intense. Even though I’ve studied European history and World War II for years, the film still had me guessing. It got me wondering if it was going to be a piece of revisionist history. Despite the fact that I knew what was going to happen, it still had me on the edge of my seat. The seizing of Berlin was done with such a cinematic flair that I became completely disconnected from what I’ve read in history books and learn in college and became immersed in the movie.

If there was one shortcoming of the movie, it was that the movie was paced weird. The metamorphosis of Stauffenberg from toe-the-line Nazi to freedom fighter wasn’t explained all that well. In fact, it doesn’t really address why he had changed his attitude towards Hitler. There are some scenes at the beginning of the movie that try to allude to why this happened but it would have been more interesting to have seen an evil Stauffenberg develop into the resistance hero. If the seeds were planted better, it would have made for an easier movie to understand. It just feels that Stauffenberg’s development was rushed and it hurts the beginning of the movie.

Some may feel a bit disgusted by the portrayal of some Nazis as “good guys” and that’s a fair criticism. The movie doesn’t really try to address some of the actions by these Nazi officers before they decided to overthrow Hitler. Still, as more stories about the war are produced, we’re going to see that things weren’t entirely as black and white as previous Hollywood movies has made the conflict seem. Still, it would have been better, or at least more responsible, for Singer to show that even these “good” Nazis were not saints. A lesser evil is still evil and I find the film forgets that.

If it wasn’t for the pacing and poor development at the beginning of the movie, Valkyrie would have been a five-star movie. Still, Bryan Singer did an incredible job telling a story about World War II that is rarely seen. It tells a historical scenario that is displayed in such a way that it feels like the script is being written by those making the film and not taken from the history books. It is a work of art and it is an easy film to recommend.

☆☆☆☆