Here’s a nice story on why casting Tom as Von Stauffenberg was a good choice. “In the context of an assassination thriller … Tom Cruise was a natural for this character,” Bryan Singer said. Audiences apparently agree. With mixed reviews and against stiff competition that included family films “Marley & Me” and “Bedtime Stories,” as well as Oscar hopeful “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Valkyrie” held its own at box offices.

The complete story:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – It was an improbable plot hatched during World War Two and to match it on movie screens, Hollywood offered perhaps the most unlikely casting of a hero at the holidays — Tom Cruise playing a German army officer.

Cruise, of course, enjoys All-American looks that helped send him to movie stardom playing heroic young men such as Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in 1986 movie, “Top Gun.” As of late, he’s been on a mea culpa tour to explain his odd behavior in recent years and to regain his good-guy image with fans.

The improbable plot was a plan by German officers to kill Adolf Hitler by placing a bomb near him at a top secret meeting, and the resulting movie about that attempt is “Valkyrie,” starring Cruise as Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg who was at the center of the assassination attempt.

“Stauffenberg was unique, handsome, and Tom had a lot of the same attributes, besides the physical looks of the character,” “Valkyrie” director Bryan Singer told Reuters.

“I look for similarities in the actor and the person and in that world — you take all (Tom’s) baggage away — and you’ve got a good casting choice,” he said.

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The Washington Post says that “Against all expectations — and much to the relief of MGM, where Cruise is now a boss of United Artists — he has fashioned a successful if not exceptional film. Directed by Bryan Singer, “Valkyrie” is a brutally efficient bit of storytelling, and it makes no unforced errors.” and talks about “fine performances”, “a well-cast ensemble piece” and Tom who “rises to the top once again”:

Expectations for “Valkyrie,” Tom Cruise’s history-based thriller about the July 20, 1944, attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, were low. The subject matter couldn’t be more serious, and Cruise’s career hasn’t exactly been a steadily accumulation of gravitas. Gone but not forgotten are the days of Oprah couch-jumping and Matt Lauer tongue-lashing. And his professed faith in Scientology makes him a lightning rod, especially in Germany, where “Valkyrie” was filmed and is the subject of considerable controversy. Worst of all, though, was damning criticism from Berthold Schenk von Stauffenberg, son of the film’s hero, Claus von Stauffenberg, who told Cruise to keep his grubby Hollywood mitts off dear old dad — and go home.

Cruise did neither. Against all expectations — and much to the relief of MGM, where Cruise is now a boss of United Artists — he has fashioned a successful if not exceptional film. Directed by Bryan Singer, “Valkyrie” is a brutally efficient bit of storytelling, and it makes no unforced errors. Visually, it is tightly controlled to the point of claustrophobia, a grim study in battleship gray and the dreary palette of fascism. It is admirably free of any Spielbergian effort to squeeze sentimentality or inspirational lessons out of what is a complicated and morally complex story.

With fine performances from Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy and Terrence Stamp, it is a well-cast ensemble piece. And even Cruise, whom many doubted could carry off the aristocratic elan of the blue-blooded von Stauffenberg, manages his part respectably, with a combination of ramrod posture, starched costumes and minimalist acting.

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Entertainment Weekly says ” “Valkyrie” succeeds on its own terms as a handsome hybrid of conspiracy thriller and history lesson” and calls the mechanics of the actual plot “pretty amazing”:

Valkyrie (2008)

Once the fodder for gossip as brassy as a Wagner horn solo, the behind-the-scenes operatics that delayed the release of Valkyrie are quickly forgotten the minute Tom Cruise gets down to the business of plotting to kill Adolf Hitler. Cruise plays Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, a Good German famous to his countrymen for his resistance to the Nazi mandate but less known among Americans. Trained as a loyal soldier, the well-bred officer’s disgust at his Führer’s leadership deepened following severe wounds suffered during battle in Tunisia, where he lost a hand and an eye. And the assassination plan and subsequent government transition that Stauffenberg devised, with help from a network of dissident army officers and political leaders, was an audacious blend of suspenseful daring and wonkish political strategy.

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Forget the Internet hysteria. This Tom Cruise vehicle is a perfectly acceptable motion picture.

Hollywood and the people who brought you World War II have been making beautiful music together for decades, and “Valkyrie,” the new Tom Cruise vehicle, doesn’t disturb that melody.

The story of a real-life bomb plot against German leader Adolf Hitler’s life — spearheaded by the patriotic aristocrat Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, played by Cruise — “Valkyrie” is made with impeccable professionalism and, flying in the face of years of Internet hysteria, is a perfectly acceptable motion picture. The only thing that keeps it from even greater accomplishments may be inherent in the story itself.

Certainly the July 20, 1944, conspiracy against the Führer is one of the more compelling narratives to come out of World War II, and, frankly, the less you know about it, the more likely you are to appreciate the film that screenwriters Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander and director Bryan Singer have constructed around it.

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