Review: Valkyrie

2008 seems to be a year of defied expectations. We put an African-American in the White House, The Dark Knight was not a disappointment in any way, and Tom Cruise’s latest movie doesn’t suck (and contains 0% Scientology). Nowai right? Valkyrie, directed by Bryan Singer of X-Men and Superman fame, was a huge effort on the part of United Artists to pump some money back into the studio. Now I can’t say for sure yet if enough people went out to see it, but I will say that people should. Valkyrie is no classic, but it’s a top-notch historical thriller that shouldn’t be missed.

Valkyrie follows the real life story of the last assassination attempt on Hitler. Tom Cruise plays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a major player in the plot. The plot follows Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators through their plan to kill Hitler and remove the Nazi-controlled government. It starts off tense and doesn’t let up until the final shot of the film. What’s more impressive than this, however, is how powerful and compelling of a movie this really is. Considering that it’s based on a real-life event and doesn’t stray very far at all, it keeps up an impressive level of immersion. Almost anyone with a passing knowledge of Hitler’s demise will probably have a pretty good understanding of how the movie will end prior to seeing it. I went into this movie with the knowledge of most of the general facts regarding the event and still felt entirely engrossed in the movie.

This is truly not your typical Hollywood thriller. The characters seem realistically motivated and very few of them, save Stauffenberg and Hitler, really feel like they’re “good” or “evil.” The end of the film is perhaps the most evident of this. As I said before, the end shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, yet it’s an extremely powerful scene. The filmmakers told it how it was; there’s no extra bits tacked on to make us feel good about ourselves. They set out to tell what they felt was an important story and in that they succeeded.

The acting, while nothing to write home about, feels entirely in place with the writing of the film. The actors and actresses feel very comfortable with their characters and while not all of the dialogue is that great, it never feels very off and certainly doesn’t work against the immersion. Cruise himself handles the role (which I personally thought he’d butcher) pretty well and makes for an honest portrayal of the Colonel . While the portrayal is very one-dimensional, I feel this is more of an issue due to the time constraints rather than Cruise’s acting ability.

Overall, I found Valkyrie to be a very good historical thriller with a stomach-able level of Hollywood over-dramatization. The story is engrossing, the characters are believable, and the ending is as poignant as I’ve seen in a long time. It’s far from the best film of the year, but it blew my previous expectations right out of the water.