a lot of criticism has been levelled at the use of the respective actors own accent in bryan singer's "valkyrie", yet i feel this is a fairly trivial criticism. if anything the dropping of german accents actively helps the performances, pushing the accessibility whilst dropping any form of distraction. i think a lot of people are forgetting that, at heart at least, this is a popcorn adventure film, and nothing more (despite the best intensions of the filmmakers.
the film tells the story of colonel claus von stauffenberg, a key player in a plot to assassinate adolf hitler. obviously hisory dictates that he wasnt successful in his endevear, yet the suspense of the film still flows.
this is tom cruise's film, something that will be blazingly obvious to anyone who has seen the films marketing campaign or indeed any tom cruise film this decade. i once wrote an essay on how cruise is perhaps unique in the sense that he is the only actor who could be considered an auteur, in the respect that he makes the majority of the creative decisions on a film project, akin to how a director would usually. thats not to say that the rest of the performances in''valkyrie'' are invisible. kenneth branagh, terrence stamp and thomas kretschmann (the actor originally set to play von stauffenberg, prior to cruise's involvement) are all great, although bill nighy annoys (as usual).
stylistically the film isnt the usual thing that one would expect from bryan singer, its far too pedestrian. alas it does what it intends to do, and for a couple of hours at least, is an entertaining saturday night film.
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