Here is the Hollywood Reporter review of Valkyrie, MGM’s new film with Tom Cruise.
The story is true. It deals with a a real plot to assassinate Hitler. Col. Claus von Stauffenberg shrewdly planned the July 20, 1944, assassination and coup attempt against the Nazi leader. A considerable number of people were involved, and about 200 people were hanged and about 700 were arrested in connection to the plot. According to the reviews, the film is an accurate portrayal of the real events.
Can’t wait to find out if the assassination and coup was successful? Here is the spoiler:
If you seriously need to read a spoiler to find out if Hitler died as a result of Stauffenberg’s plot, perhaps a quick history review might be in order…
So, if the spoiler hasn’t ruined the ending for you, do you intend to see this film?
I wonder how much this movie whitewashes the conspirators. I mean, these were senior German military officers - I doubt very much that they were democrats, or even particularly decent people. As I understand it, the conspirators were chiefly motivated by the fact that Hitler wasn’t suing for peace once the tide of the war turned - they hadn’t been opposed to the war, or the Holocaust, as such. Is that correct?
I saw it for free and thought I got my money’s worth. If Tom Cruise, who is very good in the movie, hadn’t been the lead, I would pay to see it again (I generally refuse to pay for movies that star $cientologists). It was actually decent, much better than I thought it would be. Even knowing the outcome it was tense and exciting. I don’t know how accurate it was in the details, but it worked as a movie, even with the unhappy ending.
I got the idea that the conspirators were mostly worried about Hitler’s legacy for Germany. IOW, they were Germans first, Hitler’s men second. There was talk of closing the concentration camps as soon as they knew the plan was successful, but nothing in particular about what was going on in the camps.
I don’t know that the conspirators were whitewashed. They all seemed to be decent people though. von Stauffenberg was pretty much portrayed as a hero type.
I just hope this film doesn’t give any ideas to nutball freeper-types, thinking that if they kill Obama, they’ll go down in history as a hero. I hate that that thought even crossed my mind while watching it, but it did, as did The Dead Zone.
That’s basically true of the conspirators as a group, but of course, individual motivations varied. Stauffenburg, at least, was apparently bothered by the Holocaust. Goerdeler was opposed to the Nazis all along, and did his best to prevent both the war and the Holocaust. But, yeah, a lot of them were largely upset that Hitler was losing.
I want to see it. I’m pretty indifferent to Tom Cruise and think that he’s put in some pretty good performances here and there. His personal life doesn’t mean a thing to me.
I thought this would be about some really interesting alternative history twist. Kind of like in Sleepy Hollow, when it turned out that the headless horseman was real (a surprise for me, at least).
The preview makes it look pretty damned good. I’m not a big Cruise fan, but neither do I hate him. I like conspiracy movies, WW2 movies and political thrillers, so I’m gonna see it, natch.
Actually when I first saw this advertised (a story that’s had numerous previous treatments incidentally) I remember wishing that instead they’d do a big budget production of Philip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle, one of the first and best of the alternate histories in which Hitler survives (and wins) the war (and doesn’t).
The hook to the film is not whether or not the plot succeeds, but how it was plotted. Much like Titanic, we already know how it ends. It’s how it gets there that the real meat is. I seem to recall hearing one of the producers of the film saying something in the same vein.
I am indifferent towards Cruise, but I am interested in history and WWII, so I would be interested in seeing this movie.
I saw Valkyrie at a sneak (I’m another who doesn’t contribute money to the Co$). If only one of the plotters against Hitler had had the balls to stage a suicide mission, they would have been successful. I had been thinking that von Stauffenburg might be willing to sacrifice himself in the effort, knowing what failure would mean.
HBO had an excellent alternative history movie, Fatherland, where the US stayed out of WW2. It’s 1962, Britain was conquered and part of Germania, the Holocaust had been successfully hidden from the US and the war continues against the Soviet Union. Germany is trying to normalize relations with the US President Joe Kennedy.
That line makes me chuckle too. Did he need to clarify with the conspirators specifically who they were plotting to kill? It struck me as a line written with the preview in mind, for someone who doesn’t know what the movie is about.
I believe so, indeed, its often a simplification to make out German soldiers were nazi’s , just fighting for their country, and reasonable war movies bring up such politics as:
Cross of Iron’s clash between the old soldier, and the Prussian aristocrat who had come to the Eastern front having previously spent a happy peaceful time in Paris…
Das Boot’s pro nazi guy (I can’t remember if he was a journalist or crewman, haven’t watched it for a while), and the hatred of the Nazi’s by the other crew and the captain.
Though it never deals with the massacres which had to involve the normal army going into and coming out of the USSR (apart from views from the outside like in Come and See). The hatred of the slavic race was very much a nazi thing…
