“The film’s final half-hour achieves maximum dramatic heft as conflicting reports of Hitler’s fate present the characters with difficult choices. The fact that the audience already knows which option will lead to their downfall hardly matters. If anything, the knowledge the viewer brings to the film enhances the drama.”
The supporting cast is altogether excellent”, “Kenneth Branagh makes a strong impression”, “Cruise practically shakes with intensity but doesn’t upset the careful balance of the ensemble piece”.
‘Valkyrie’ is “a slick slice of historical intrigue — one that manages to keep the viewer engaged from start to inevitable finish.” Read the entire review here:

The makers of Valkyrie seemingly faced a mission impossible: create suspense out of a failed plot (spoiler!) to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

And yet the glossy Hollywood product works like gangbusters — a historical thriller loaded with tension and paced like a Messerschmitt.

Valkyrie isn’t perfect, but the film is perfectly entertaining. Viewers looking for insight into the motivations of the major players should explore other options.

When the audience meets Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise), the German colonel has already made the distinction between serving his country and serving the Fuhrer.

The same goes for Stauffenberg’s high-ranking co-conspirators, none of whom stops to question roles in what amounts to high treason.

Granted, the film opens in 1943 — a decade after Hitler became dictator, providing plenty of time for loyalties to fray — but some internal conflict would still seem likely. The mostly military men were breaking a sworn oath, after all.

As it stands, the machinations of the conspiracy are the film’s true concerns.

Director Bryan Singer, teaming with writer Christopher McQuarrie for the first time since The Usual Suspects (1994), devotes the first hour to planning the assassination and the second to its execution (or lack thereof).

Lip service is paid to Stauffenberg’s concern for his wife (Carice van Houten), but the filmmaker is clearly more interested in crafting what plays as a populist heist movie — one in which the best-laid plans are nonetheless fraught with dangerous improvisation.

What’s amazing is how much did go according to plan.

The film title refers to an operation in which Hitler’s reserve army would secure the government under emergency circumstances. Stauffenberg’s clever manipulation of the plan results in a near takeover of Berlin. It comes as no surprise that the “what ifs” loom large.

The film’s final half-hour achieves maximum dramatic heft as conflicting reports of Hitler’s fate present the characters with difficult choices. The fact that the audience already knows which option will lead to their downfall hardly matters. If anything, the knowledge the viewer brings to the film enhances the drama.

Most of the actors speak in their natural accents, including British actors Bill Nighy, Terence Stamp and Tom Wilkinson. The obvious exception is David Bamber, who was born in Lancashire, England but speaks in a

German accent as Hitler. Singer must have figured the conceit could be taken only so far.

The supporting cast is altogether excellent — especially Wilkinson as the slyly duplicitous Gen. Friedrich Fromm. Kenneth Branagh makes a strong impression early before disappearing for much of the second and third acts.

Cruise, meanwhile, practically shakes with intensity but doesn’t upset the careful balance of the ensemble piece. His Stauffenberg is so committed to the task at hand that he seems almost inhuman.

The viewer wishes for a crack in the armor to go along with the eye patch and starched uniform.

Such thoughts, though, arise only after the ending credits. Valkyrie, as it unfolds, is a slick slice of historical intrigue — one that manages to keep the viewer engaged from start to inevitable finish.

I certainly didn’t see that coming.

(Source: the Columbus Dispatch)