Valkyrie

I must admit, I've been waiting for Valkyrie a long time. I first saw the trailer a year ago, and I've been anxiously awaiting its release ever since. The extraordinary cast and the subject matter. So I gritted my teeth and waited, aggravated by the film's delays, ignoring the "scandals" surrounding the film, the bad buzz around Tom Cruise and the idiotic complaints about Scientology and lack of German accents profiligating around the 'Net. I was apprehensive because of much of the above, but I had to see this film. I just hoped it would be good.

Today, after almost a year of waiting, I went to see the film with my brother and a mostly packed house. Not only did Valkyrie live up to my expectations, it far exceeded them. It does everything a thriller should do and does it extraordinarily well; the fact that deals with an event - the 20 July plot against Adolf Hitler (David Bamber) - that 99% of sentient beings know the resolution to actually enhances the film's quality.

Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) is a young, aristocratic German army officer who is growing increasingly disgusted with Hitler, for both his ineptitude and the atrocities which he's committing in Eastern Europe. Wounded in an air raid in North Africa, he loses his eye, hand and several fingers, and he struggles to recover, he is approached by Generals Henning Von Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh) and Friederich Ollbricht (Bill Nighy) to join in a group of plotters planning to overthrow or kill Adolf Hitler, in order to save Germany from complete destruction by the Allies. Stauffenberg and Ollbricht re-draft Operation Valkyrie, Hitler's emergency contingency plan, to give them control over the German Reserve Army - under the duplicitous, indifferent General Friederich Fromm (Tom Wilkisnon) - in case of a national emergency, and plan to use it to demobilize the German government following the assassination. Stauffenberg carries out his mission, detonating a bomb in Hitler's field headquarters, and Valkyrie slowly lurches into action; but before too long, word of Hitler's survival leaks out, and Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators find themselves in the cross-hairs of a ruthless reprisal by the SS.

It's extremely rare that a thriller manages to be completely gripping throughout, and given the subject matter, Valkyrie is even more impressive than that. The film deserves comparison with one of my favorites, Fred Zinnemann's masterpiece The Day of the Jackal, for its technique; even though the viewer knows the assassination plot is going to fail, it remains intense and gripping throughout. Indeed, this adds a great deal the film, showing just how good it is; getting from Point A to Point B proves as fascinating as what Point B will be. As in A Bridge Too Far, it's fascinating watching how the little mistakes, seemingly inconsequential, build up into a colossal, stupendous failure. The what-ifs of the assassinate profilerate - Hitler's meeting is post-poned, an aide (Tom Hollander) moves Stauffenberg's briefcase behind a table leg, Ollbricht demures in mobilizing the Reserve Army until the last minute - providing a wonderful sense of tension throughout; given the seemingly random and unpredictable nature of things, it would be impossible to see where this was leading were this a fictional story. This all builds wonderfully to a head, showing that Hitler's survival was a matter of luck more than anything else. And needless to say, watching Valkyrie unspool is just as fascinating as the build-up.

If the movie whitewashes the conspirators a bit much, that's okay given the story. The Stauffenberg plotters came from a variety of social backgrounds and political ideologies; some may have merely objected to Hitler's inadequacies as a leader, but Ollbricht, Treskow, Goerdler (Kevin McNally), Beck (Terence Stamp) and Witzleben (David Schofield) had all been involved in early plots against Hitler, even before the outbreak of World War II. And surely, we know enough about Stauffenberg that we can accept the film's portrayal of him as an idealistic young officer driven by conscience to reject the Hitler just emerging as the world's most foreboding avatar of evil. One may reasonably question what the July 20th plotters could have accomplished had they succeeded - they may have made peace with the Western Allies, but I've no doubt Stalin would have wanted his pound of German flesh regardless. That doesn't make Stauffenberg and his followers any less heroic, however, and the movie keeps its moralizing to a minimum regardless.

Stylistically, the film is top-notch. Director Bryan Singer keeps things moving at a brisk pace; the exposition and build-up move quickly, not becoming overly bogged down in details and getting through the necessary backstory efficiently. The film has its share of powerful moments: the German typists signalling Hitler's death en masse, the conspirator's show of solidarity for Stauffenberg, Stauffenberg being forced to perform a Hitler salute by the duplictious Fromm, and the expertly crafted execution montage at the conclusion. Newton Thomas Sigel's cinematography is striking, making brilliant use of Nazi red and gray to create a foreboding, tense and violent atmosphere. John Ottman contributes a subtle, low-key score that contributes to the film's atmosphere. Singer cleverly transitions from German to English early on so as to render the bitching about accents moot.

Tom Cruise as Stauffenberg was a pleasant surprise. For all the Scientology bitching and remarks about piratical eyepatches, he gives a really strong performance as the lead. Cruise plays the parts for its strengths, giving Stauffenberg presence, dignity and intensity belying the idiotic Internet chatter. Maybe not Oscar-worthy, but excellent for the film in question; he does all that the film asks of him and does it perfectly.

The fine supporting cast is largely underused; talented character actors like Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Izzard, Tom Hollander, Christian Berkel, Bernard Hill and Kevin McNally are used more for atmosphere than actual dramatics. However, there are several fine performances regardless. The best are Tom Wilkinson, as the shifty General Fromm, Terence Stamp's grave and dignified General Beck, and Bill Nighy's painfully indecisive Ollbricht. Other actors compensate for their lack of screentime with powerful moments: David Schofield gives a wonderfully defiant speech to his Nazi condemners, Kenneth Cranham's Keitel has an amusing rivalry with Fromm, and Thomas Kretschmann has some of the film's best moments as the Wehrmacht Major who slowly realizes what's happening (confirmed by a dramatic phone call from Hitler himself). The gorgeous and talented Carice Van Houten is badly underused as Stauffenberg's wife, and David Bamber's Hitler is perhaps overly subdued and subtle (though preferable to another maniacal caricature), but otherwise there's not much to complain about.

Valkyrie is simply a wonderful, gripping and hugely entertaining film. It runs a lean, fast-paced 120 minutes, bereft of subplots, with minimal sentimentality and moralizing; it's all business, plot, characters and action, doing what it sets out to do and doing it marvellously. It's one of the best thrillers I've seen in ages, and I might even say the best film of the year.

Rating: 9/10 - Highest recommendation