valkyrie

VALKYRIE (12A) ***

STARRING: TOM CRUISE, BILL NIGHY, TOM WILKINSON, KENNETH BRANAGH, EDDIE IZZARD

JANUARY has become a strange month for major film releases in the UK. On the one hand it’s full of heavy-hitting awards bait (see some of this week’s other releases); on the other it’s traditionally a dumping ground for films that distributors have lost confidence in (again, see some of this week’s other releases). On paper Valkyrie looks like it could straddle both camps.br /br /The story of the last-known German plot to kill Hitler, as led by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (played by Tom Cruise), it has the weighty historical setting, the based-on-true-events plot, the lavish costumes and even the physically disadvantaged hero (Stauffenberg was maimed during the war) that could qualify it as a by-the-numbers Oscar-chaser. Yet because it was made by an A-list director (X-Men/Superman Returns helmer Bryan Singer), features a top-notch cast, and still suffered the ignominy of being bumped from last summer’s blockbuster release schedule, it arrives pre-tainted with the stench of failure.br /br /That it doesn’t really fit into either category, however, gives some indication of how out-of-whack release strategies are. Valkyrie certainly isn’t vying for awards in any conscious way and though it’s not quite the high-powered blockbuster many assumed it would be, it’s not the unmitigated disaster the bad buzz suggested either.br /br /That’s not to say it’s good, exactly (serviceable seems a more appropriate adjective), but it does feel more like a throwback to a time when studio films weren’t ruthlessly divvied up as prestige pictures or blockbusters; a time when crafting a modest film from a fascinating story in the hope of turning a little bit of a profit and perhaps entertaining a few punters along the way was sometimes enough.br /br /In other words, Valkyrie is really a B movie. Which is why, even though in terms of cinematic veracity it makes no logical sense to cast Cruise in the role of Stauffenberg (let alone allow him to keep his purebred American accent), the withering megastar doesn’t seem quite as incongruous to proceedings as he should. Instead he functions here in much the same way that Clint Eastwood used to do in many of his less-celebrated pictures: deploying his particular brand of movie star lustre to suck audiences in and ensure the plot goes from A to B without too many distractions.br /br /Accordingly, we learn next to nothing about Stauffenberg from the film or Cruise’s performance. He arrives almost fully formed as a Hitler-hater scribbling away in his diary entries about how much he despises what has become of Germany under the Third Reich. As the movie opens he’s already been dispatched to the Tunisian desert for making comments critical of Hitler’s war effort. What prompted his cynical assessment of the Führer is never really explored, perhaps to avoid clouding the heroic status of a man who will have to spend the entire movie wearing a swastika. Indeed, strip away the pristine grey duds and the silly side-parting and Cruise could be Ethan Hunt on another Mission: Impossible, the kind of bland hero whose moral certitude is never in question.br /br /br /br /Not that Singer gives us any time to contemplate his motives. Within minutes of being introduced, Stauffenberg is blasted with the Allied bombs that will relieve him of an eye, a hand and several more of his fingers. With physical disfigurement now reinforcing his dissenting attitude (cue eyepatch), he’s a prime candidate for the German resistance, which recruits him to aid its ongoing efforts to assassinate Hitler and negotiate a truce with the Allies.br /br /That there have been other attempts on his life (the end credits inform us there were 15 known plots in total) is indicated in the first instance by Kenneth Branagh, cast here as Major-General Henning von Tresckow, who tries to eliminate Adolf with a bottle of cognac jerry-rigged with explosives. His failure creates an opening for Stauffenberg, who understands that killing Hitler will not be enough: they’ll need to seize control of Berlin too. Stauffenberg’s plan – and it’s a dizzyingly intricate one – is to put into effect Operation Valkyrie, a contingency designed to set up a shadow government in the event of the Fuhrer’s death, which they will adapt and modify in an effort to ensure that the SS are cut off too.br /br /Singer and his Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie have a reasonably tight grip on the mechanics of this plot and, as the plan is put into motion, they ratchet up the tension as it suddenly becomes clear to us that not all of Stauffenberg’s co-conspirators – particularly his nervy boss General Friedrich Olbricht (an uncomfortable looking Bill Nighy) – are as iron-willed as him. When the plan starts falling apart, however, that tension begins to dissipate. Even though Singer – no stranger to whipping a little bit of social commentary into pulpy movies (see the first two X-Men films) – transforms the final act into a comment on the complicity of the German people by riffing on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (even with their backs against the wall, ten righteous men can’t be found to save Germany), it’s not really enough because the film never fully succeeds in making us suspend our disbelief enough to think that the Stauffenberg’s plot might actually work. “There has to be a chance of success!” barks Cruise at one point. A good movie, even a B movie, should have convinced us of this./blockquote