Movie Review – Valkyrie
The true life plan to assassinate Hitler by a small group of German officers. As you can probably work out, they are unsuccessful, but here is the story anyway.
While Tom Cruise stars, this is far from a Hollywood movie. Filled with great character actors such as Kenneth Branagh, Terence Stamp, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy and even the ever improving Eddie Izzard. To get around the obvious lack of German speaking, the movie makers pulled the same move as made in The Hunt for Red October, starting off in one language and then fading it out as English begins to be heard. It’s not a great way to do it but I guess Hollywood doesn’t really want to make movies with foreign stars and subtitles.
For a movie that is well, slow in building and without much action to begin with, there are some great lines spoken such as ‘Any problem on Earth can be solved with the careful application of high explosives. The trick is not to be around when they go off.’ which I think I will adopt as my personal motto, and ‘Remember, this is a military operation. Nothing ever goes according to plan.’
It should also be noted that Valkyrie features lots of shots and sounds of the Junkers Ju-52 plane which totally makes my day!
Given the grim story that Valkyrie is about, it isn’t a surprise that the movie is short on laughs and long on drama. It isn’t a date movie or a movie you want to watch on a summers day. Its a movie about soldiers who believed that protecting their country meant removing their leader. If they failed, they would not be simple jailed, they would be killed and yet they still attempted it.
Valkyrie is a good movie if not one that a lot of people would want to see. Growing up in the UK in the 70s, there was always a war film on television, or at the cinema and some of my favorite movies of all time are military movies, such as Kelly’s Heroes and of course Where Eagles Dare so I like Valkyrie. I just don’t think it had enough bang for the average cinema going audience!
