Tom Cruise’s Noble Nazi Flick
- Title: Valkyrie
- IMDB: link
“God promised Abraham that he would not destroy Sodom if he could find ten righteous men. I have a feeling that for Germany it may come down to one.”
Tom Cruise stars as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg one of many Nazis loyal to the fatherland, but disatisfied with the Fuhrer’s running of the country. After getting blown-up in the early scenes the now eye-patched Stauffenberg joins a resistance group and begins planning the assassination of Adolf Hitler (David Bamber).
The film, written by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander and directed by Bryan Singer has so many issues not even Superman’s return could save it from disaster.
Let’s start with the Nazi’s themselves. A more honest good-natured group you’d be lucky to find anywhere outside a Hogan’s Heroes re-run. All the the conspirators are presented as noble, self-sacrificing men who might be handing out money to the poor and donating their time to work with the elderly if it weren’t for that Hitler guy. Were all these men tricked into joining the Nazi party?
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So 
Before we begin let me be honest and admit I’m more of a cat person. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy dog movies (when they’re good), but it does mean I’m not likely to give a pass on a film, or go easy on it, just because it has a cute four-legged star. Based the semi-autobiographical experiences of columnist John Grogan the film tells the story of how a dog changes the lives of a young couple. If you can get over the cute factor (and the length which, at two-hours, is a problem) you might have an enjoyable enough time.
Normally I’d use this paragraph to sum up the story (and throw in a few pithy comments), but quite frankly there’s precious little of interest to share. The film is not much else but the timing challenged love story between Benjamin and Daisy (played as an adult by the always wonderful Cate Blanchett), but mostly it’s a collection of vignettes filling in the spaces of when Button is too physically elderly to be with the youthful dance ingenue. Button works on a tugboat with the salty and drunk Captain Dan, uh I mean Captain Mike (Jared Harris)! Button has an affair with the bored wife of a spy! (Tilda Swinton) Button uh… hangs around a lot and starts a successful shrimp business. Wait, no. That’s the other one. In this one he kinda inherits a button factory but doesn’t do anything with it. But you get the point.