Valkyrie

Singer back to being a genius. I don't even know why I was afraid of a lack of humanity or a cold approach. The tension comes from just a glance at the army or a fleeting shot of Hitler's back of the head. It is precisely the authenticity and documentary veracity that give the final catharsis the stamp of the purest emotions. (02/26/2009)

I avoided the film for a long time, but in the end it is a solid suspenseful spy-war film about the overthrow of Hitler. Tom Cruise is excellent in the lead role and even though I couldn't get into the film for the first half hour, once Operation Valkyrie started I didn't even flinch. (05/07/2019)

Singer did a good deal of work on this and everything is in the right place. He literally delights in the authenticity of the setting and the event. Cruise’s acting is good and his performance as Colonel von Stauffenberg will win you over. Simply because of what a good guy he was. It was excruciating knowing how his assassination attempt worked out. (04/29/2009)

A historical thriller executed with precision, which, even despite the handicap of having a known ending, manages to generate tension better than most of today’s competition. Cruise is not quite up to the task, which results in several uneven scenes (the ones with his wife), but the perfect performances of the rest of the cast more than make up for it. It’s not a perfect film by any means, but I still liked Valkyrie more than three fifths of this year’s Oscar contenders. (02/16/2009)

Valkyrie is a film that was made thanks to the desire, money, and determination of Tom Cruise, who played the main role. I must admit that I didn't believe in the project even after seeing the trailers, and I was afraid of the usual distortion of historical events by Hollywood. To my surprise, Valkyrie is a sober, perhaps too sober, film that simplifies (as was necessary) complex motivations and events, but remains faithful to historical events. Tom Cruise portrayed his character somewhat idealistically, 2-3 dialogues are weak, and a drop of pathos is evident in 2-3 scenes, but I was spared the heart-wrenching scenes of farewells with family and condemned prisoners that I expected. I didn't give it a fifth star because the events surrounding the coup are well-known to history enthusiasts, and the film has nothing surprising in that regard. Kenneth Branagh's performance as General Tresckow deserves mention. Singer's direction is professional, and we get to enjoy the tension in manipulating detonators or briefcases filled with explosives. Just a note: Hitler's death could indeed have shortened the war by several months, but the prospects for the coup plotters were minimal; they simply did not have enough support, and once the circumstances of Hitler's assassination became known, they would undoubtedly have been eliminated. The conspirators, after all, never formed a compact group; there were moderate nationalists as well as liberals, and they struggled to find common ground. Their ideas, even concerning the allies, were naive; they expected to negotiate a ceasefire and an honorable peace, which in their minds included a number of territorial gains from the ongoing war. However, after the successful invasion of Normandy and the crushing of the German army in Belarus, the Allies no longer considered anything other than unconditional surrender. Overall impression: 80%. By the way, not only I but also major American studios, did not believe in the film, expecting that the artistic reconstruction of events that did not directly affect American involvement in World War II would fail to resonate with audiences. (12/28/2009)