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"Director: Bryan Singer Screenwriters: Christopher McQuarrie, Nathan Alexander Starring: Tom Cruise, Carice Van Houten, Bill Nighy Running time: 120 mins Certificate: 12A In this polished World War II thriller, Tom Cruise gives up the Hollywood smile, his left eye and his right arm to play a rebel soldier in Hitler&amp;#039;s army. Regardless of those various handicaps, it&amp;#039;s not a huge stretch for the star who&amp;#039;s played the forthright action-man before in films like Minority Report and the Mission: Impossible franchise. Through the lens of The Usual Suspects director Bryan Singer, real-life hero Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg ranks alongside those men. That might be doing him a slight disservice, but his story does make for a ripping good caper nonetheless. Stauffenberg is earnest in his intentions even if the film is not. He makes clear his disgust with Hitler early on in the midst of a losing campaign against the Allies in North Africa. In a letter home, he makes reference to the wider atrocities committed by the Reich, regarding these as &amp;quot;a stain on the honour of the German army&amp;quot;. Then after being maimed in an aerial attack, he returns home to pick up a medal and spearhead Operation Valkyrie, a coup conspiracy against der F\u00C3\u00BChrer. It isn&amp;#039;t a snap decision, but Singer doesn&amp;#039;t hang around to weigh up the moral dilemma; after all, Stauffenberg isn&amp;#039;t just risking his own life but that of his wife and children as well. Clearly, Singer is in a hurry to get to the cloak-and-dagger stuff and that is where he excels. The air almost literally crackles with tension as, initially, attempts are made to smuggle high-explosives through official lines and Stauffenberg quietly negotiates his way into Hitler&amp;#039;s inner sanctum. He&amp;#039;s helped to that end by Bill Nighy on fine form as General Olbricht; either schmoozing potential recruits or squirming in his seat as he waits for the order to send the Reserve Army marching on Berlin. In a sterling lineup of British supporting players (featuring Kenneth Branagh and Eddie Izzard), Tom Wilkinson shines as General Fromm. He&amp;#039;s a careerist who stands to benefit from Hitler&amp;#039;s assassination, but a cowardly streak keeps him hedging his bets.  All the underlying political tensions between the men bring suspense and urgency to a series of backroom meetings, a few that include the unwitting F\u00C3\u00BChrer himself (played by British theatre stalwart David Bamber). Following in a tradition of Hitchcockian potboilers and &amp;#039;70s conspiracy thrillers, the excitement comes in loaded exchanges of dialogue rather than big explosions - although there are a couple of those as well. Singer amps up the danger with expert use of sound and imagery; for instance, a pool of typists that becomes a salvo of machinegun fire, or just a quiet pause drawn out to devastating effect.  The endgame is not quite so nerve-shredding since history tells us that Valkyrie, in July 1944, was unsuccessful. Singer relies on Cruise to emote the tragedy of his own bleary-eyed defiance; fortunately he&amp;#039;s well-rehearsed in that (ref. War Of The Worlds and Born On The Fourth Of July). And even in an eye-patch, he exudes the kind of charisma that would have been needed to front this grand-scale betrayal of Hitler. But Stauffenberg&amp;#039;s last act isn&amp;#039;t as emotionally rousing as it could be because Singer fails to drive home the personal cost of his high ideals. It is the major flaw of the film, reducing Stauffenberg to a simple figurehead, albeit with a rarely seen perspective on World War II. That&amp;#039;s what keeps Valkyrie from breaking the ranks of A-grade thriller to achieve landmark status. Expect thrills, not a revolution.   &amp;gt; What do you think of the movie? Share your views "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/review/a143508/valkyrie/>