I am not a fan of Tom Cruise and his movies. Hence I was a bit skeptical when I received his latest movie Valkyrie in the mail for review. If you are familiar with the “typical” cruise movie you know that the movie generally goes like this. Man (Cruise) starts off in something either as a success or struggling person. He hits the big time. Then his world comes crashing down around him, due to some unforeseen circumstance. He has sex with a woman so that he can get his confidence back and emerge victorious. So I naturally wondered how they would do this with Valkyrie. Fortunately the movie producers didn’t and instead produced a decent film that was entertaining, educational and well made.
Valkyrie is set in Nazi Germany during WW2 and is the story of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and the plan to assassinate Adolph Hitler and thus put Operation Valkyrie into effect to take control of the country. Stauffenberg was the last of many attempts to unsuccessfully mastermind the assassination of Hitler. Thinking that his attempt was successful Stauffenberg and through a strain of events launches Operation Valkyrie and orders all Nazi party leaders and SS soldiers arrested. Thus he begins to put into motion the plans to take over Berlin’s government section. With the news that Hitler survived the blast Stauffenberg dismisses this as Nazi propaganda and commences the plan. Much to his dismay the Fuhrer is alive and well and has the group behind this assassination attempt arrested and executed for treason.
Overall, this was a decent movie. I would have rather seen someone other than Cruise in the role of Stauffenberg (as would many have German people). It is hard to see cruise as a German especially since he didn’t even use a German accent. Aside from poor casting on the main character part, Valkyrie was a good movie and I would actually watch it again.
Reviewed by Jeff Holton
