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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 01/25/2009 : 13:48:36
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Valkyrie
With that dynamic duo of Singer and McQuarrie that brought us the incisive and beautifully constructed Usual Suspects, with a cast of versatile actors, and with such high production values, I was expecting a really interesting take on a historical event that deserves an audience. Sadly, although there is much to admire about the film, it really doesn't work.
How amazing that some 50+ years on, we're still all so fascinated by WWII; I'm not sure too many other events prior to that in history commanded such relentless retelling, exploring every nook and cranny from expected glorification, generic vilification, human-sized stories, and more recently - viz Schindler's List and The Black Book - an attempt to recognize acts of heroism on the part of the former enemy.
In this case, it's an examination of various plots to assassinate Hitler and negotiate a truce with the Allies for the greater good not only of Germany but all of Europe, and by extension, the world.
The fact that such "resistence fighters" would be seen by the establishment as terrorists, let alone traitors, makes a subtle point about contemporary political resistors and their labels.
Someone recently said, if god is on both sides, whose side are you on?
Needless to say with a mainstream film starring the most famous cine-face in the world, such politcal delicies are not the point, and merely implied in passing.
That face, Tom Cruise, in recent marketing junkets for the film, keeps emphasizing its construction as a thriller. Well, of course, it isn't, and I doubt that was ever the intention, considering everything is already known and documented.
I don't really care that some events are conflated and some dialogue can't possibly be documented, fiction, as we know, handles scenes to create a deeper truth than accuracy. In that, the screenplay well serves the actors in establishing the inner dilemmas they'll need to convey in accepting to help the plot. What it doesn't do - given this is a 2+ hour film and there should have been room - is establish real relationships between friends, enemies, intimate, convenient, whatever. That anything of that nature exists is down to the actors.
I don't really understand why most of the US critics are slating Cruise for his portrayal of the driver of the main assassination plot. OK he doesn't reach the depth of Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, or Bill Nighy - but this isn't one of his movies where he just swings himself through the action.
Anyone who's seen Born on the Fourth of July or even his hilarious cameo in Tropic Thunder can't complain of miscasting. I've read complaints that he's too repressed. Bollocks! He was raised in an aristocratic family dedicated to a military ideal, which protects partly by repressing the personal. Whether or not one agrees with such an approach, it is a logical and valid one for an actor to portray.
So, in the end, it's a perfectly watchable film, though hardly more than that. If you're looking for MissionImpossible, don't look here. If you're looking for The Lives of Others, look elsewhere. If you want a glimpse into a world you probably don't know much about - albeit a slightly simplistic glimpse - this is a valid way to go.
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 01/25/2009 16:44:50 |
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Salopian 
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 01/28/2009 : 12:48:56
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Valkyrie
Yes, it's not as engaging as one would hope, but it's competent and as far as I can tell representative of the events. It was in fact better than I had expected as I had heard that it was not doing well. And I think it's a sufficiently important story to tell (the just-following-orders image of German soldiers being so prominent) that I appreciated more than many other war films of the same level of quality. I think there was a German made-for-television version in c. 2004 that was very well received, so that might be worth tracking down.
I don't know what proportion of the Holocaust occurred between 20th July 1944 and the end of the War. I fear it may have been very sizeable. It's hard to conceptualise that a few men actually might have stopped that.
By the way, one of Stauffenberg's sons has expressed being uncomfortable with Tom Cruise playing his father, given that he is a Scientologist. |
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Salopian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 01/28/2009 : 12:54:49
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| I've added some other versions, including that German T.V.M. |
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Salopian
"Four ever European"
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 01/28/2009 : 13:06:32
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quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
Here's another thread about it.
Really sorry damalc - dunno why I couldn't find your thread on this.  
Please forgive me 
PS thanx, Sal, for link
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 01/28/2009 13:06:57 |
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Salopian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 01/29/2009 : 11:20:39
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Some gripes that I forgot to mention:
Starting off in German (even with a German title that permeated the B.B.F.C. card) seems rather pointless and half-hearted. This is highlighted by the fact that Cruise prounounces Goebbels as "GO-bbels" later on! I also found it rather lazy that the driver who takes Stauffenberg to the airport (i.e. one of the imagined standard mass of soldiers who fell for/went along with it all) is a stereotypically glassy-eyed, gormless Aryan type. |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 09/03/2009 : 23:22:49
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| It's beautiful, but it did nothing for me. Tom Cruise was the sore thumb; his readings are all OK but he never grasps the character -- if he were Joe McShmoe I might be kinder. All suspense is leached out b/c we know Hitler survived the assassination attempt -- and at least 14 others, according to a card at the end. Disposable, and a low point for Bryan Singer. |
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Sean 
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 09/03/2009 : 23:28:50
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quote:
Originally posted by randall
It's beautiful, but it did nothing for me. Tom Cruise was the sore thumb; his readings are all OK but he never grasps the character -- if he were Joe McShmoe I might be kinder. All suspense is leached out b/c we know Hitler survived the assassination attempt -- and at least 14 others, according to a card at the end. Disposable, and a low point for Bryan Singer.
Oh now you've wrecked it! Where was your spoiler warning?!?!?
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Valkyrie
