Movie Review: Valkyrie (2008, Directed by Bryan Singer)

It’s beginning to look a lot like Oscar season, which means it’s also beginning to look a lot like a flood of WW II films coming to a multiplex near you. Hitler and the Holocaust feature prominently in this year’s awards season, including such disparate films as The Reader, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Defiance, and Good. Then there’s director Bryan Singer’s latest effort staring a non-couch-jumping Tom Cruise, Valkyrie.

Singer’s new film tells the story of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the leader of an effort by German officers to assassinate Hitler. While Valkyrie presents nothing particularly novel or profound, the director is able to craft a well-constructed thriller out of the familiar material. I was never bored during the film’s two hour running time. For some reason, the pre-release buzz regarding this film has been overwhelmingly negative. While I don’t think Valkyrie is anywhere near one of the best movies of the year, it’s much more credible and entertaining than I expected.

Tom Cruise is actually not bad in the lead role here. The script doesn’t require him to do too much, and that’s probably just as well. He doesn’t overact or over-react to the perilous situations at hand. While he is not electrifying to watch, he succeeds in not taking the audience out of the story with over-exaggerated gestures and mannerisms.

The film does serve as an important reminder that not all people living in Hitler’s Germany worshiped the Fuhrer unquestionably. I wish the film had spent more time exploring the German officers’ motivations for forming a resistance movement. Nevertheless, Valkyrie gives an effective picture of several individuals’ willingness to stand in the minority. There are times, the film seems to say, when one’s loyalty to all of humanity is even greater than one’s loyalty to the policies of one’s own country.