What an Awesome Nazi!

You know, for all his flaws—that “celebrity
spokesperson for a cult” thing, his creepy marriage to Katie Holmes,
that weird, arrogant-but-eager-to-please look he always has during
interviews—I still kinda like Tom Cruise. As a person, the dude’s
50 different types of insane, but as movie stars go? He’s not half
bad.

Likewise, I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Claus von Stauffenberg, the
Nazi colonel Cruise plays in the based-on-a-true-story Valkyrie.
I mean, von Stauffenberg was a Nazi, for chrissakes! But as Nazis go?
Not half bad! I mean, he totally tried to kill Hitler! And he
had a sweet eyepatch!

Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie is probably the pulpiest drama being
released this Oscar season, but it’s also one of the best: Lacking
Doubt‘s clumsy melodrama, The Curious Case of Benjamin
Button‘s feel-good platitudes, and Wendy and Lucy‘s dreary
insistence on making you want to slash open your wrists,
Valkyrie‘s a lean, sharp, engrossing thriller. Singer—here
working with The Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher
McQuarrie for the first time since the two made that 1994
classic—simply wants to tell a good story and tell it well, and
he does.

Von Stauffenberg isn’t alone in his singular vision (ha!) to take
out Hitler—joining a covert group of insurgents, Eyepatchy von
Maverick and his pals (who are played by Terence Stamp, Bill Nighy, Tom
Wilkinson, and Kenneth Branagh) decide taking out Hitler is the only
way to show the world that not all Germans are monsters. Setting up a
shadow government that aims to kill the Führer and then surrender
to the Allies, they hatch an incredibly risky plan.

SPOILER ALERT: It doesn’t work. But the fact that real life is
futile and depressing doesn’t negate Singer’s confident, tense
direction, nor take anything away from the surprisingly strong
character work. Brisk, sharp, and smart, Valkyrie doesn’t have
any grandiose aims—it just knows what it’s doing. Which, in a
holiday movie season as silly as this one, proves to be quite the ace
in the hole.