Valkyrie

[CaptainLewis]

Valkyrie
Monday, January 19 2009, 11:15 GMT
By Stella Papamichael
Director: Bryan Singer
Screenwriters: Christopher McQuarrie, Nathan Alexander
Starring: Tom Cruise, Carice Van Houten, Bill Nighy
Running time: 120 mins
Certificate: 12A

In this polished World War II thriller, Tom Cruise gives up the Hollywood smile, his left eye and his right arm to play a rebel soldier in Hitler's army. Regardless of those various handicaps, it's not a huge stretch for the star who's played the forthright action-man before in films like Minority Report and the Mission: Impossible franchise. Through the lens of The Usual Suspects director Bryan Singer, real-life hero Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg ranks alongside those men. That might be doing him a slight disservice, but his story does make for a ripping good caper nonetheless.

Stauffenberg is earnest in his intentions even if the film is not. He makes clear his disgust with Hitler early on in the midst of a losing campaign against the Allies in North Africa. In a letter home, he makes reference to the wider atrocities committed by the Reich, regarding these as "a stain on the honour of the German army". Then after being maimed in an aerial attack, he returns home to pick up a medal and spearhead Operation Valkyrie, a coup conspiracy against der Führer. It isn't a snap decision, but Singer doesn't hang around to weigh up the moral dilemma; after all, Stauffenberg isn't just risking his own life but that of his wife and children as well.

Clearly, Singer is in a hurry to get to the cloak-and-dagger stuff and that is where he excels. The air almost literally crackles with tension as, initially, attempts are made to smuggle high-explosives through official lines and Stauffenberg quietly negotiates his way into Hitler's inner sanctum. He's helped to that end by Bill Nighy on fine form as General Olbricht; either schmoozing potential recruits or squirming in his seat as he waits for the order to send the Reserve Army marching on Berlin. In a sterling lineup of British supporting players (featuring Kenneth Branagh and Eddie Izzard), Tom Wilkinson shines as General Fromm. He's a careerist who stands to benefit from Hitler's assassination, but a cowardly streak keeps him hedging his bets.

All the underlying political tensions between the men bring suspense and urgency to a series of backroom meetings, a few that include the unwitting Führer himself (played by British theatre stalwart David Bamber). Following in a tradition of Hitchcockian potboilers and '70s conspiracy thrillers, the excitement comes in loaded exchanges of dialogue rather than big explosions - although there are a couple of those as well. Singer amps up the danger with expert use of sound and imagery; for instance, a pool of typists that becomes a salvo of machinegun fire, or just a quiet pause drawn out to devastating effect.

The endgame is not quite so nerve-shredding since history tells us that Valkyrie, in July 1944, was unsuccessful. Singer relies on Cruise to emote the tragedy of his own bleary-eyed defiance; fortunately he's well-rehearsed in that (ref. War Of The Worlds and Born On The Fourth Of July). And even in an eye-patch, he exudes the kind of charisma that would have been needed to front this grand-scale betrayal of Hitler. But Stauffenberg's last act isn't as emotionally rousing as it could be because Singer fails to drive home the personal cost of his high ideals. It is the major flaw of the film, reducing Stauffenberg to a simple figurehead, albeit with a rarely seen perspective on World War II. That's what keeps Valkyrie from breaking the ranks of A-grade thriller to achieve landmark status. Expect thrills, not a revolution. 3/5

Source: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/a143 ... kyrie.html

[CaptainLewis]

Cruise unfazed by 'Valkyrie' controversy
Monday, January 12 2009, 15:08 GMT
By Lara Martin

Tom Cruise has revealed that he was unfazed about signing up for WWII epic Valkyrie, insisting that he knew the movie would be controversial.

The 46-year-old stars as Colonel Count Claus Von Stauffenberg, the man who led the 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler using a bomb concealed in a briefcase.

"I knew it would be controversial. We’ve never seen this perspective before. But I couldn’t ignore it because the story is so compelling," he told the Mail On Sunday.

"It’s about trying to bring down the greatest evil in the world from the inside. That makes for a fantastic thriller."

The actor insisted that he was prepared for the criticism that the movie courted, including objection from the German government over his Scientology religion, because he has faced controversy throughout his entire career.

"I’ve done controversial films before. With Rain Man they were hanging Dustin Hoffman and me out to dry. With Interview With The Vampire [author] Anne Rice took out a full-page ad against me taking the part.

"When I did Eyes Wide Shut with Kubrick it was controversial. There have always been these things. But I like challenging roles."

Valkyrie opens in the UK on January 23.

Source: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/a141 ... versy.html

[CaptainLewis]

Cruise 'too small' for 'Valkyrie' role
Monday, January 19 2009, 19:04 GMT
By Lara Martin

Tom Cruise is "too small" to play Claus von Stauffenberg in Valkyrie, according to the officer's family.

In an interview with German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, the colonel's great nephew Franz von Stauffenberg claimed that the Top Gun star was miscast.

Discussing his performance, Stauffenberg said: "[He] seems terribly cautious, almost as if he were afraid of playing the role. He tries to seem elegant but comes across as extremely stiff.

"He seems not at all decisive in the role and above all not charismatic enough. On the whole he just seems too small.

"From what I've learned about Claus von Stauffenberg from the literature, history books and family stories, he is meant to have been a charismatic man. Someone who inspired people with his smile, his humour and charm."

Von Stauffenberg was the man behind the 1944 attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler by placing a bomb in a briefcase.

Earlier this month, Cruise claimed that he was unfazed by the criticism surrounding Valkyrie, saying: "I knew it would be controversial... But I couldn’t ignore it because the story is so compelling."

Valkyrie opens in the UK on February 23.

Source: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/a143 ... -role.html

[katied]

Tomcruiseisnotstauffenberg.com,anyone

[FormerBondFan]

I thought Cruise is a little bit miscast as Stauffenberg. If I were Bryan Singer, I would cast an unknown.

[Kristatos]

tomcruiseisnotstauffenberg.com

[CaptainLewis]

Has Tom lost the plot?
By Chris Tookey

Bryan Singer's wartime thriller suffers from the fact that we all know that the attempt by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) to assassinate Hitler (David Bamber) failed.

The only surprise is that so many people were in on the conspiracy and it came so close to success.

Unfortunately, Singer is uninterested in exploring the issues or characters. A fine, mostly British cast is wasted on roles which are too simplistic to warrant them turning up.

Tom Wilkinson comes off best, as a canny officer trying to cover himself against every eventuality.

Cruise can be great when playing characters who are fiercely driven, such as the self-help guru in Magnolia or the aggressive sports agent Jerry Maguire. But here he is under-powered and out of his depth.

The script doesn't give him much to work with - we never understand Von Stauffenberg's aristocratic roots or his political beliefs - but Cruise is outclassed by a supporting cast that includes Carice van Houten (from the superior wartime thriller Black Book), Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh.

Symptomatic of Cruise's shortcomings is the fact he can't be bothered to change his American accent, which makes him seem like a Hollywood interloper.

Virtually everyone else sounds English, although a few of the baddies, Hitler included, go for 'Allo 'Allo! German.

I was never bored, and the period detail is lovingly observed; but there is a sense of an opportunity missed.

Does this picture tell us anything we didn't know, apart from that late on, when Hitler was losing his grip and the war, some of his former supporters turned against him? I fear not.

Verdict: Top Gun with jackboots 2/5

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/re ... -plot.html

[Kristatos]

Well, if Christopher Tookey didn't like it, it might be OK.

[CaptainLewis]

Xan Brooks
The Guardian, Tuesday 20 January 2009

What becomes of a movie star when the career hits a hiccup and the lustre starts to fade? If the movie star is smart, they go back to basics, reconnecting with the fire of their formative years. What drove them back then? What first made them strive for greatness? "When I was a kid I always wanted to kill Hitler," Tom Cruise revealed recently. "I hated that guy and all he stood for."

Valkyrie, then, is not just the latest Tom Cruise action thriller. It is the fruition of a dream; a boyhood fantasy writ large; a Hollywood blockbuster that provides an opportunity that was denied him in life. Inevitably he bungles it.

Bryan Singer's picture casts Cruise as Claus von Stauffenberg, the Wehrmacht colonel who spearheaded the 20 July 1944 plot to save the fatherland. Wounded in battle and sporting a natty eye-patch, von Stauffenberg has grown sick of war. He wants to "show the world that not all Germans are like Hitler". He hates that guy and all he stands for.

The obvious sticking point here is that (spoiler!) von Stauffenberg did not actually kill Hitler. The plot failed and the conspirators were executed. Played as a tragedy, or a stark study of failed ambitions, this might not have been a problem. Except that Singer opts to frame Valkyrie as a high-concept wartime suspense thriller, inviting us to suspend our disbelief and go along for the ride.

The 1944 plot was at least fiendishly planned and generally well executed. Singer's, by contrast, seems flawed and foolhardy from the start.

But what of Singer's co-conspirator? Valkyrie paints von Stauffenberg as the archetypal "good German", a model of elegant disenchantment. And yet Cruise, for all his skills as a performer, does not do disenchantment. For all the anguished moments of doubt, the constant stares into the mirror, his von Stauffenberg is essentially Top Gun with an eye-patch.

The film's curious melange of dialects only underscores this quality. Von Stauffenberg's cohorts are played by British actors (Bill Nighy, Terence Stamp, Kenneth Branagh) who deliver their lines in English accents. The villainous Nazi is portrayed by German actor Thomas Kretschmann who speaks English in a German accent. And then - standing separate and apart - is Cruise himself, intoning his lines in pureblood American. He might as well have been dropped in from an Allied plane; a gung-ho Hollywood hero sent in to clean up a very European mess. He couldn't manage it as a kid, and he can't quite do it now. Hitler one; Tom Cruise nil. 2/5

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jan ... ilm-review

[CaptainLewis]

James Christopher



Among the current monsoon of true stories, Valkyrie is the most startling. Not least because it is one of the very rare tales about the German Resistance that addresses the overlooked heroism of officers and soldiers who actively fought Hitler and his regime from within the ranks of power. The baffling irony is that this neglected corner of history should be championed by a conventional Hollywood nail-biter .

Tom Cruise stars as Claus von Stauffenberg, a one-eyed German officer who has priceless access to Hitler’s war operations bunker, nicknamed the Wolf’s Lair. In 1943 the disenchanted army officer is sounded out and recruited by a secret cabal of top-notch aristocrats who hatch a plan to topple the Third Reich in one fell swoop. Cruise is to put a briefcase full of explosives under the table on his next date with the Führer, prime the bomb, walk out of the room to make a phone call, then blame the subsequent carnage and Hitler’s death on an SS power struggle.

Needless to say, the success of this operation hinges on a preposterous amount of Hollywood hamming. A national security plan — code-named Operation Valkyrie, which Hitler himself drafted in the event of such a catastrophe — would then swing into action. The ingenious twist is that the original Valkyrie plan has been cleverly redrafted to hand the reins of power to the patriots who are plotting Hitler’s downfall.

Thus, when word gets out that the Führer is splashed like marmalade all over his concrete bunker, Colonel Cruise and his high-powered vigilantes can use the emergency plans to shut down Berlin, take control of the army, arrest the SS, install a brand new chancellor, and sue for peace.

The breathtaking point of the film is that most of this barmy plot is true. If it wasn’t for a nasty wobble of confidence by one general (Bill Nighy) and a panicky blunder by another (Eddie Izzard), the map of Europe would look mighty different. Bryan Singer’s film is an old-fashioned espionage thriller that takes its heroic cues from “if only” classics such as The Eagle Has Landed.

What’s worrying is the over neat packaging. Valkyrie is a prized chapter of German Resistance for a generation that is eager to distance itself from Hitler’s toxic crimes. It feels strange that this proud story has landed in the lap of an American director who has never made a factual film in his life.

Singer’s biggest hits are The Usual Suspects, X-Men and Superman Returns. He makes a noble and romantic fist of this terrific story but it feels spookily like a well-oiled Hollywood entertainment rather than a sensational chapter of history. It would have carried far more clout if this film had emerged from the burgeoning and newly confident German film industry, with homegrown actors and director to match, rather than the tired mills of Hollywood.

It’s a small, but significant, beef. Cruise plays the heroic Stauffenberg like Clark Kent. The hairstyles are exactly the same. The patriotism is faultless. He wears his war wounds like badges of honour. He has trench credibility with the troops and the aristocratic breeding of a natural leader.

Stauffenberg is a superhero, and by the same token, Cruise seems perfect casting. The fatal, and perhaps inevitable, flaw is that the Hollywood actor eclipses the German legend. It’s impossible to appreciate Stauffenberg’s achievements, and the profound importance of this doomed act of resistance, outside the usual strictures imposed by a Hollywood film that is made to entertain rather than inform. That is currently the problem with the vogue for “true stories”.

When British Spitfires shoot up his division of Panzer tanks in the opening credits, Stauffenberg is already enjoying guilty fantasies about high treason. Unfortunately, the attack costs him an eye, a right hand and three left fingers. But it earns him a medal, and an office job close to Hitler. For an action Romeo like Tom Cruise this is worryingly close to art-house territory.

During awkward bouts of mirror-staring depression, Cruise takes his marble eyeball out of a silver box and polishes it on his sleeve. Sometimes he drops the grisly orb into Izzard’s gin and tonic like a cube of ice to test whether the chubby general is awake to the rebel cause.

In the presence of David Bamber’s silent and psychotic Führer, Cruise’s courage looks pressed and ironed. He has the nerve to bluff and tease. The personal stakes are ghastly, though a ten-second clinch with his wife and children are so brief as to be almost not there.

Thenceforward, the star doesn’t flinch from his doomed biblical mission. There are murky meetings with Terence Stamp and Bill Nighy who are grooming Cruise, and themselves, for glittering new jobs. But Singer’s film takes off only when Stauffenberg finally puts the coup in motion. The tension sets like concrete as he gets nearer and nearer to Hitler with his brown briefcase. When the bomb goes off, all hell breaks loose. For an entire reel it seems that the plan has worked. I’ve rarely seen a film milk quite so mercilessly the idea that Hitler might actually have died.

Telegrams shoot back and forth. The army swings towards Cruise. It looks like a clean and glorious sweep. The superior joy of Valkyrie is that the war ministry in Berlin is staffed by Britain’s most wonky thesps. Their bickering over biscuits, and who’s in charge of the dynamite, are the kind of details stolen from classics such as The Great Escape.

There is something wonderfully Victorian about cut-glass English Nazis. Kenneth Branagh, Terence Stamp and Bill Nighy are terrific as old-school soldiers with stiff upper lips. General Tom Wilkinson is a slimy delight as a powerbroker on the make. But when Hollywood has the last word, something dies. It feels, ultimately, like a story that has been taken advantage of, and skillfully repackaged as mass entertainment. 2/5

Source: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 561412.ece