JohnCalvinYoung.com

When I first saw the trailer for the new Tom Cruise his­tor­i­cal thriller “Valkyrie”, I was ecsta­tic that some­body was finally going to tell the story of the July 20^th Plot to kill Hitler. As the release date neared, I began to be afraid that the film wouldn’t do jus­tice to the story, espe­cially if it was serv­ing as a stan­dard star vehi­cle for the many big-name actors involved in the pro­duc­tion.  I was pleas­antly sur­prised when I watched the film–this is a unique film to come out of Hollywood in this day and age.

My review was pub­lished in Carolina Journal’s February issue. As always, CJ makes a good read, but I’ve included my review below.

War films, con­spir­acy thrillers, and action block­busters are not rare, but one that ful­fills all of the cat­e­gories like “Valkyrie” is a treat. Director Bryan Singer brings us the pow­er­ful story of the July 20 plot to assas­si­nate Adolf Hitler in 1944 — an action that, if suc­cess­ful, could have ended Germany’s part in the war nine months early and saved thou­sands of lives. Tom Cruise stars in this unusual epic, show­cas­ing the real, not fic­tional, brav­ery of a small group of men who tried to bring down one of the worst dic­ta­tors that ever lived and redeem their nation’s reputation.

The film opens with a young German Army Col. Claus von Stauffenberg (Cruise), recently invalided home from North Africa, com­ing to a real­iza­tion that he could no longer in good con­science sup­port the Fuehrer — Hitler had become “not only the arch­en­emy of the world, but the arch­en­emy of Germany.” Other offi­cers, such as General Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh), had reached the same con­clu­sion and deter­mined to act on it — a recent attempt to plant a bomb on Hitler’s trans­port plane had failed. The bril­liant young von Stauffenberg, trans­ferred to the German High Command (OKW), was quickly recruited for the plan to stop Hitler.

The con­spir­a­tors were torn between their oaths of loy­alty to the Fuehrer as offi­cers and the con­vic­tion that he had to be stopped. In his posi­tion in OKW, von Stauffenberg stum­bled across an exist­ing plan named “Operation Valkyrie” designed to secure the gov­ern­ment in case of a coup. As a trusted offi­cer who briefed Hitler fre­quently, von Stauffenberg was the per­fect courier to deliver a bomb to kill the dic­ta­tor. With Hitler’s own plan for secur­ing the gov­ern­ment, he could manip­u­late the expected response in their favor.

On July 20, at a rou­tine brief­ing at the Fuehrer’s Eastern Front head­quar­ters, von Stauffenberg armed the bomb while a con­fed­er­ate cut off com­mu­ni­ca­tions with Berlin to gain time to imple­ment their plan. Von Stauffenberg waited until he wit­nessed the blast, then bluffed his way out of the com­pound in the ensu­ing con­fu­sion. Unknown to him, the bomb had been moved aside by another offi­cer who was not in on the secret, and Hitler was shielded from the full force of the blast when it went off.

Returning to Berlin, von Stauffenberg found the other con­spir­a­tors had not taken advan­tage of the three-hour com­mu­ni­ca­tion black­out to start Operation Valkyrie, as the dictator’s death had not yet been con­firmed. Word began leak­ing out that the Fuehrer was not dead, and when von Stauffenberg’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions were cut off by Hitler’s order, the plot, and the lives of the con­spir­a­tors, were doomed.

“Valkyrie” remains largely faith­ful to the his­tor­i­cal account, devi­at­ing in a few places but care­fully fol­low­ing the main nar­ra­tive. Many small details are faith­fully included, such as an unsus­pect­ing officer’s care­less han­dling of one of the early bombs that scared one of the con­spir­a­tors. The ini­tial announce­ment of the pro­duc­tion met with mixed reac­tions in Germany. Concerns were raised over the cast­ing of megas­tar Tom Cruise as von Stauffenberg, both as a highly pub­lic Scientology adher­ent (the reli­gious group is con­sid­ered a cult in Germany and the gov­ern­ment has con­sid­ered a ban) and as the star of “Top Gun,” likely result­ing in a watered-down story to empha­size the action. Not least, they needed per­mis­sion to shoot at his­toric loca­tions and dis­play the Nazi flag and sym­bols — strictly ver­boten in Germany.

These well-considered reser­va­tions were resolved, how­ever. The German gov­ern­ment granted per­mis­sion to film and back­date to Nazi times a vari­ety of his­toric sites, includ­ing the Benderblock in Berlin where the chief con­spir­a­tors were shot. The film­mak­ers may have dra­ma­tized a few scenes, but the project as a whole upholds the fac­tual account. Valkyrie keeps up the ten­sion through the final min­utes, even with the end­ing never in doubt. The result is a very straight­for­ward, clean, his­tor­i­cally accu­rate depic­tion of the hero­ism of a small cir­cle of men will­ing to risk and give their all.

I was extra­or­di­nar­ily impressed by the his­tor­i­cal accu­racy of the film and their treat­ment of a spy/war plot with little-to-no lan­guage, lit­tle gore, and no nudity or other inap­pro­pri­ate behav­ior. I felt the film would not have been out of place show­ing at the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival–despite its Big Hollywood ori­gins, the film gave a accu­rate, sym­pa­thetic por­trayal of real hero­ism in the char­ac­ter of Colonel Von Stauffenberg, and they didn’t ruin it with gra­tu­itous con­tent errors.

The writ­ing was also superb. Even where the lines are most likely entirely fic­tional, the writ­ing is quite memorable–at one point Treskow, leav­ing the plot in Stauffenberg’s hands when he is trans­ferred to the front, turns to von Stauffenberg and says, “You know, God promised Abraham that he would not destroy Sodom if there were ten right­eous men. I feel for Germany it may come down to one.” When the con­spir­a­tors are fac­ing the fir­ing squad at the end, Colonel Von Stauffenberg says to one of the oth­ers, “Look them in the eye; they’ll remem­ber you.” This film pow­er­fully tells their story for a new generation.