The tight World War II thriller “Valkyrie” lugs a steamer trunk full of undeserved baggage: producer/star Tom Cruise’s celebrity meltdown, chatter about a rough production, speculation about accents. There’s also the ridiculous cultural expectation that every WWII movie since “Saving Private Ryan” has to be some kind of Oscar-baiting Important Statement About War.
I hope gossip-choked moviegoers can see past all that because it has nothing to do with what matters: the story onscreen. “Valkyrie” works as intended: as a taut, unpretentious and unapologetically old-school WWII flick where the accents are all over the place and you’re too caught up to notice.
The film reunites director Bryan Singer with “The Usual Suspects” screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie (working with Nathan Alexander), and has more in common with men-on-a-mission classics like “The Great Escape” or “Von Ryan’s Express” than it does with “Private Ryan” or “Flags of Our Fathers.”
Like “Suspects,” “Valkyrie” concerns smart men and failed heists. This time, the smart men try to steal a government. It’s based on the true story of disgusted German military leaders (played by Kenneth Branagh, Terence Stamp, Bill Nighy and others) who staged a failed coup against Hitler on July 20, 1944. Their risky plan involved killing the F£hrer, shifting blame to the German High Command, and using Hitler’s own reserve army to take the country and end the war. Carrying the most dangerous burden is Col. Claus von Stauffenberg (Cruise), who lost an eye and one-and-a-half hands in the African theater.
Of course, as one character puts it, “This is a military operation — nothing ever goes according to plan.” The movie is a tense study in failure and grace under pressure, and a return to form for Singer after the bloat of “Superman Returns.” His attention to detail is meticulous without derailing the story’s momentum, and he earns suspense by cleanly setting up the geography in every situation, from the layout of Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair compound to the inner workings of a bomb to the layout of the Reich’s phone network. I loved the film’s clear sense of how big plans hinge on tiny details — a look, a perfectly worded sentence, the decisions of minor bureaucrats. The screenplay is spare, full of great conversations in which everyone has to dance around the traitorous point.
If the movie has a weakness, I suppose it’s that Cruise plays Stauffenberg as blandly laser-focused, despite Stauffenberg making some big mistakes. The actor anchors the film well enough — as Shawn Levy told me later, “If this was ‘Where Eagles Dare,’ then Cruise was Clint Eastwood” — but Branagh and Nighy are more vulnerable, nuanced and fun to watch.
Still, the film is a minor Christmas miracle: It succeeds on its own terms, despite the gossip hounds’ best blood-sniffing efforts, and dares to be an entertainment rather than a statement.
(Source: Oregon Live)
