The lowdown on the latest Tom Cruise-starrer, Valkyrie

There are oh, so many ways to royally destroy a serious war movie, and Valkyrie, which opened last week amidst a stir of gratuitous negative publicity, almost narrowly misses every one of them. Valkyrie is about a dangerous mission gone haywire, in more ways than just one.

The film has Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) at the core of an elite German command`s usurping of one of Hitler`s own engineered plans - Operation Valkyrie - against the dictator. If it had worked, would have assassinated Hitler, trampled in a spectacular coup d`état and hampered the Second World War`s existence. The plot was to deploy the Reserve Army to maintain order and take over the government after bumping off Hitler. Since Stauffenberg`s failure is no mystery, the film from the get-go steams ahead with an air that renders his mission an almost futile endeavor.

This also makes Valkyrie a candidate for one of those no nonsense, edgy war movies made with little loss of on-screen blood and barrel loads of contemporary seriousness. Since Valkyrie is a contemporary big budget movie made for a larger Tom-Cruise audience as well as for critics, the film gains sentience mid-way and turns overtly momentous. The film then steadily entangles itself as a fixture between scenes promoting its actors (there are fine performances dotted all over Valkyrie) or deciding to focus on events that may or would have happened.

The film, when it opens up with Stauffenberg`s narrative, is already knee deep in cloak and dagger. On a calculated whim the film assumes that we`re already familiar with the Nazi atrocities of the Second World War (as if Hollywood would ever let us forget anyway), and directly jumps midstream of the conflict about overthrowing the Führer.

During the movie we meet characters who conspire against Hitler without getting to know much about them. Maybe Bryan Singer and writers Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander wanted to eschew the history lesson and turn Valkyrie in a one-event spectacle, with a single mindset spread-eagled with pressure and friction. Even with his level of conviction, Singer`s film still simmer`s on low heat during the first act.

But still, Singer juiced out some oft-used yet decent ideas like, deemphasising the film`s score (by longtime collaborator John Ottman, who also edits his films) to ingest naive realism; or for example, when Stauffenberg slowly eases from German into English, (much like the scene in Judgment at Nuremberg) at the beginning of the film, bridging over the language barrier for the audience or, such as when Hitler (an awesome David Bamber) comes into the film, he isn`t accentuated by thespian camera angles or villainous evil music — the guy just shows up. This is also very much like the first half of the film, which just happens, for plot convenience, to make way for the energetic last 45 minutes when Operation Valkyrie goes full steam. It then wraps up almost too effortlessly There is a scene when Stauffenberg senses that the Hitler at one of the meeting is a duplicate, yet in his desperation he still goes on with the mission.

The characters are emotional, but just to get rid of Hitler. It`s not that Valkyrie is unintelligent; it`s just not emotionally moving.

However Valkyrie is still a vehicle typical of Tom Cruise, who with a fake eye and a damaged hand, outstrips the conformity of his role. Cruise does what he does even if Stauffenberg`s complexity is customised to fit the few scenes he has looking in the mirror, shaving or putting on his coat. The others, Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson and Jamie Parker with their cacophony of accents, almost do as good a job as Cruise. We don`t get to know them intimately, but they shine nonetheless. Maybe with a rewrite, Valkyrie would have a dash of more sparkle to it.

The film stars Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Carice van Houten, Thomas Kretschmann, Terence Stamp, Jamie Parker amongst other, and off course, David Bamber doing a mean Adolf Hitler. The film has music by John Ottman, who also edits, is photographed by Newton Thomas Sigel, and is produced by Gilbert Adler, Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie. McQuarrie also writes the movie with Nathan Alexander. Singer directs the movie with too much air-of-significance and not enough emotion. Valkyrie is rated PG-13, for whatever restricted violence there is in the film.

Second opinion

Cool, calm and collected Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, played by Tom Cruise in Valkyrie, once performed an important part in showing the world that Germans too hated Hitler and will go to any length to overthrow him; however they were not the first to try it, nor were they the last.

Crippled and partially blinded in the middle of World War II, Stauffenberg`s hatred of Hitler had its seeds planted long before his injures, shown in the opening scene as Tom Cruise writes the wrongs of Hitler in his journal. And mind you, that`s all the audience gets for Stauffenberg`s character buildup. Stauffenberg`s only reason in the film is to assassinate Hitler, and since he`s the one propelling the whole film, it too only revolves around this one point and negates the human side of the story.

Director Bryan Singer and writers do try to sprinkle some human emotion through the interplaying of the characters but that too had the utmost grave effect through the whole course of the film.

Scenes with Stauffenberg and his wife were coarse and abrupt, plastering the notion of their intimacy too forced to be believed. Flaws like these and others of miniscule size are scattered around in abundance which could have been disastrous, if not for its outstanding cast of actors with mixed nationalities, boost Valkyrie to a somewhat astute prominence.

Tom Cruise was sublime, yet grave, as he didn`t undermine or overplay any of the scenarios and still gave ample space for the supporting cast which shined liked a new coin straight from the mint. Valkyrie is a well-intended and well-acted film which could have done wonders if only it had more soul. — Farheen Jawaid