Valkrye – Cert 12 A

Tom Cruise and host of British stars in this retelling of the July 1944 plot - - a war-time story of heroism and daring ending in tragedy

The latest vehicle for Tom Cruise is a well-made and exciting thriller set in the last months of the Second World War. It tells the story of the July 1944 plot against Hitler’s life by a group of German Army officers led by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Stauffenberg was an establishment aristocratic scion of the German officer class, a decorated war hero, who became convinced that the only way to secure Germany’s future and save the fatherland from the continuing evil and madness of the Nazi regime was to kill Hitler and stage a coup allowing the Germans to sue for peace. This project was astoundingly difficult for practical and psychological reasons – Hitler was the German Army’s Commanding Officer and on taking power as Chancellor in 1933 had made the German armed forces swear a personal oath of allegiance to him as their Fuhrer. The film opens with that oath displayed up on screen. This meant that any disobedience or questioning of orders was considered as treason and the very notion of defying the chief went against the Army code. Thus the cause has to be honourable – that of stopping the horror and bringing peace – or the will to carry out the plot would have been lacking. These are men, by no means democrats, who would rather die in the attempt to show that some were prepared to resist Hitler than have the ignominy and shame cast on them as perpetuators of Germany’s dark night of tyranny.

Stauffenberg is invalided out of the fighting in the Western Desert and is posted back to Berlin as a staff officer where he falls in with the various groups of civilians, soldiers and diplomats who formed the disparate German ‘resistance’ at this stage in the war and at this moment in the life of the Nazi regime. The plot is hatched to plant a bomb in Hitler’s Army HQ and run Operation Valkryie designed to topple the Nazi government. Although Tom Cruise is hardly the epitome of what may be imagined as the Prussian officer of the old school he carries off the part with dash and style. Sporting an eye patch and a prosthetic arm, Cruise portrays Stauffenberg as arrogant yet a caring family man, driven yet compassionate. He has a fine supporting cast of leading British actors as his co-conspirators: the dependable Bill Nighy; Tom Wilkinson as the duplicitous General Frohm who switches sides; a character part for comedian Eddie Izzard as the staff officer inside Hitler’s command HQ; the hard-working and multi-talented Kenneth Branagh as the original leader of the plotters who makes a failed attempt on the Fuhrer’s life at the beginning of the film and ends up being posted to the Eastern Front; a strong performance by 1960s heart-throb Terence Stamp as the old general lending moral support to the operation and a study in fear from politician Kevin Mcnally.

The audacious plan to plant a bomb under the table in Hitler’s map room of his command bunker has been the most celebrated of the numerous plots on his life that took place in those last, increasingly desperate days of the Third Reich. The film is an exciting thriller which maintains pace and plot whilst giving due attention to character and motivation. Stauffenberg is worried about the safety of his wife and family and there is a scene in which she signals that she is only too well aware of the consequences of failure for them all. There is a rather moving scene, handled well, between Stauffenberg and his wife when he sends them out of the city knowing they might not see each other again. At the end of the film the credits inform the audience that not only did Nina von Stauffenberg survive the war, she lived a long life into her nineties, only recently passing away. Although the audience knows the story ends in tragedy and the plotters will not succeed, the telling of the tale as to what went wrong with mishaps, mistakes and near-misses is compelling and the courage of those involved inspiring.

The threads of honour and decency and conflicts of conscience are well handled amidst the frenetic pace that builds through the movie. At one point one of the generals declares that even if they fail it will show that not all Germans went along with the Nazis to the bitter end and some had the courage to resist. That, of course, is a central thrust of the whole affair – some were prepared to risk all and resist the tyranny. Many of the best films, plays and books dealing with the wartime period confront the viewer with the uncomfortable but necessary question, contemplated from the safety of our modern lives in peace and security, of what we might have done or not done in circumstances depicted on screen, stage or page. As we salute the bravery of Stauffenberg and his comrades, and all those prepared to confront evil in whatever era, it is a thought to be pondered still.