Valkyrie Review- Danika

Valkyrie is a brilliant film, set in the height of Hitler’s regime during World War II. A group of military officials who have fallen out of Hitler’s spell, plan an assassination attempt led by Colonel von Stauffenburg, played by Tom Cruise. The coup they had meticulously thought out was designed to use Hitler’s own forces to bring his downfall. There was only one ultimatum, Hitler’s death.

Directed by Bryan Singer, this movie was filmed on site, in Berlin, which gave the film the realistic touch that made the setting that much more enjoyable. Cruise, along with Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh created the hierarchy of character that was the German political and military structure. They depicted the leaders of the plot and made them into almost believable characters. Despite the lack of background information on most of the main characters, Valkyrie used the complicated connection between those involved to its advantage.

Operation Valkyrie was a concoction of Hitler to ensure that in the event of his death, his regime would live on. Stauffenburg and his co conspirators decide to rewrite Valkyrie to have it work to their advantage. They skillfully set up a false scheme that frames the SS and their leaders of trying to kill Hitler. Using Valkyrie as a base the group fails twice to even place the bomb with Hitler. When the third bomb goes off in Hitler’s briefing hut, Stauffenburg believes that Hitler is dead. Armed with that knowledge, however false it was, the men invoke operation Valkyrie. Halfway through the alleged coup, the officers find out that Hitler is in fact alive and they are being convicted of treason. Making a last desperate stand against the all encompassing power of Hitler’s regime Stauffenburg and the leaders are captured and executed.

The element of the movie that intrigued me the most was the fact that despite already knowing the outcome of the film, Cruise kept me rooted in the plot; always waiting for the moment when Hitler is destroyed. A movie that keeps an audience from remembering the actual events in history has done its job well.

I would not recommend this movie to young children, but teens and older I think would find this movie very interesting. The intricacies of the film are difficult to grasp at first but as the assassination attempt unravels the inner workings of German society and loyalty are revealed and that, in my opinion, is what made the film so interesting to me.