![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Valkyrie (2008), directed by Bryan Singer, written by Christopher McQuarrie & Nathan Alexander
I figured I might like this better than its indifferent reviews suggested, given my unbroken record of liking movies in which Tom Cruise gets maimed, and indeed I did— more or less. It's very well crafted, and does a good job of telling a story that, while it is a hell of a story (details here), requires a fair amount of exposition all the way through. The cast is great, though most of them don't have a whole lot to do, as the characters are sketched in just enough that you understand they all have somewhat different reasons for doing what they're doing and are all pretty much up to the task. Cruise is the center of the movie, and we still don't know all that much about his character, but that worked OK for me because his performance is so focused and so anchored in his injuries; he plays von Stauffenberg as basically a walking dead man, so his few moments of emotion are startling. He's convinced himself that willpower is everything; the movie shows that it's not, as he's undone by dumb luck (and, possibly, by the physical limitations that he avoids acknowledging: the staging of one scene suggests that Hitler would've been killed as planned if von Stauffenberg hadn't wasted time trying to deal with his bomb materials one-handed).
Although you know from the start that the plot against Hitler will fail, Singer's directing makes it feel immediate and plausible— it's a really good plan, and with the large supporting cast it feels like half of everyone in the government is in on it— and it's exhilarating when things seem to be going as intended in Berlin even though you're seeing omens of failure elsewhere at the same time; losing has rarely seemed so involving. Singer keeps finding ways to make scenes of waiting and communication visually compelling (as in a striking moment where a room full of women at teletypes, whose only job is to raise a hand if they see something important on the printout, begin to all raise their hands one at a time and freeze into expressions of fear and grief). And yet, as all of those indifferent reviews said, it all feels incomplete somehow. It's two hours long, but I think even a little more time could've made it a better movie— more breathing room for the characters, more indication that there is a world outside of all these military buildings. Also, although I generally don't care about inconsistent accents, in this case I think Cruise being virtually the only one who didn't sound British was indeed a little distracting... though I might've liked it if the only other American-sounding character had been Hitler, who is a minor but physically interesting presence in this, but sadly sounds like a generic movie-German when he opens his mouth.
ps. I was interested to learn that Germany had very mixed feelings about the movie: the government was all in favor of telling this story (since it depicts patriotic anti-Hitler action by Germans, even though most of the conspirators were still basically Nazis), and gave the filmmakers special access to historic sites for it, but Tom Cruise's presence was nearly a deal-breaker because they regard Scientology as only slightly better than Al Qaeda.
I figured I might like this better than its indifferent reviews suggested, given my unbroken record of liking movies in which Tom Cruise gets maimed, and indeed I did— more or less. It's very well crafted, and does a good job of telling a story that, while it is a hell of a story (details here), requires a fair amount of exposition all the way through. The cast is great, though most of them don't have a whole lot to do, as the characters are sketched in just enough that you understand they all have somewhat different reasons for doing what they're doing and are all pretty much up to the task. Cruise is the center of the movie, and we still don't know all that much about his character, but that worked OK for me because his performance is so focused and so anchored in his injuries; he plays von Stauffenberg as basically a walking dead man, so his few moments of emotion are startling. He's convinced himself that willpower is everything; the movie shows that it's not, as he's undone by dumb luck (and, possibly, by the physical limitations that he avoids acknowledging: the staging of one scene suggests that Hitler would've been killed as planned if von Stauffenberg hadn't wasted time trying to deal with his bomb materials one-handed).
Although you know from the start that the plot against Hitler will fail, Singer's directing makes it feel immediate and plausible— it's a really good plan, and with the large supporting cast it feels like half of everyone in the government is in on it— and it's exhilarating when things seem to be going as intended in Berlin even though you're seeing omens of failure elsewhere at the same time; losing has rarely seemed so involving. Singer keeps finding ways to make scenes of waiting and communication visually compelling (as in a striking moment where a room full of women at teletypes, whose only job is to raise a hand if they see something important on the printout, begin to all raise their hands one at a time and freeze into expressions of fear and grief). And yet, as all of those indifferent reviews said, it all feels incomplete somehow. It's two hours long, but I think even a little more time could've made it a better movie— more breathing room for the characters, more indication that there is a world outside of all these military buildings. Also, although I generally don't care about inconsistent accents, in this case I think Cruise being virtually the only one who didn't sound British was indeed a little distracting... though I might've liked it if the only other American-sounding character had been Hitler, who is a minor but physically interesting presence in this, but sadly sounds like a generic movie-German when he opens his mouth.
ps. I was interested to learn that Germany had very mixed feelings about the movie: the government was all in favor of telling this story (since it depicts patriotic anti-Hitler action by Germans, even though most of the conspirators were still basically Nazis), and gave the filmmakers special access to historic sites for it, but Tom Cruise's presence was nearly a deal-breaker because they regard Scientology as only slightly better than Al Qaeda.
