Valkyrie: Rating: 3 stars

Tom Cruise is Nazi! Tom Cruise has big boo-boos! Tom Cruise angry! Tom Cruise make Hitler go BOOM!

Valkyrie (2008)
2008 · PG-13 · Thriller
Reviewed June 15, 2009

When all is said and done, film viewers across the world can be sorted neatly into two categories: those who think Tom Cruise is overrated, and those who don't. (There are also those who think Cruise is a fucking nutjob who killed Oprah and knocked his wife up with a turkey baster, but we'll leave those people to troll the Tom Cruise fanlisting for now.) I fall pretty firmly into the first group. Cruise isn't America's worst actor, not by a long shot, but I've yet to see him do anything more strenuous than pose for the camera and look grim and determined on cue.

"Grim and determined" pretty much sums up Cruise's range, so his performance in any given role is determined less by his shallow acting skills than by the depth of the role itself — if the role calls for nothing but "grim and determined", he's good; if it calls for anything deeper, hire someone else. The role of Colonel von Stauffenberg, the Nazi officer who conspired to assassinate Hitler and the central character in Valkyrie, lies frustratingly stranded between the two types of roles; Cruise gets by with a single expression of steely determination that he keeps on his face for two hours straight, but one could wish for a more nuanced portrayal of a complex historical character. But fortunately for the film, it's an ensemble project that doesn't put too much weight on any given player, and the other players are certainly up to task — Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Eddie Izzard, Tom "Ubiquitous" Wilkinson. They all make Tom Cruise look like the bland, empty shell of an actor that he unfortunately is, but they all get enough screen time that it's easy to forget Cruise when he's not onscreen.

The movie starts out with a literal bang — and a nicely-done language segue from German to English, which neatly sets the tone while avoiding silly accents throughout the rest of the film. Within the first few minutes, Cruise's character loses an eye and a hand, thus robbing Cruise of his most important asset: his looks. (He's one of those people who can't quite pull off an eyepatch, and his "missing" hand — covered by an extra-long sleeve — just looks silly. Points for historical accuracy, but still: silly.) Still, all he needs is one visible eye and a firmly-set jawline to get his point across: "HITLER BAD. HITLER GO BOOM." He's not alone; plenty of other fellow Nazis hate Hitler too, and would like to help One-Eye von Handless blow him to kingdom come. The plot moves quickly, too quickly; I wouldn't have minded an extra half-hour or so of background info on the characters and their situation. As it is, the film moves fast enough to maintain good suspense, even though anyone who didn't flunk out of high school history knows how this plot has to end. The final scene, showing the fates of the conspirators and their enemies, is a handy overview of the film in its entirety: Cruise underacts, his accent distracts, Branagh manages to outact everyone in a mere five-second shot while holding completely still, and yet it leaves an effective impression of competent filmmaking and decent acting that might not hold up if you watched it all over again. That's the film in a nutshell: flawed, superficial, yet somehow quite effective. It's not one to own, but it's worth a single viewing.