Monday, Dec. 29, 2008

'Valkyrie' too historical to be theatrical

By Edward Robertson, atomictown.com

World War 2? WW2 WW2 WW2. WW2? WW2!

Sorry, I was channeling my inner Hollywood producer there. Back when the trailers for the latest wartime thriller Valkyrie came out, I was feeling some real WW2 burnout, but my brother screwed my head on straight with the following argument: Tom Cruise in an eyepatch trying to blow up Hitler could only be terribly awesome or awesomely terrible.

Unfortunately, my brother was wrong, which is why I get to be older. It's also another example of the fact that, like cooking and other forms of sorcery, a finished movie is more than the sum of its ingredients; lobster or zombies might be a fine base material, but lobster gets rubbery if you cook it too long, and the undead just aren't that exciting when they're slurring their way through lectures on theoretical physics instead of gnawing their way through our viscera. Failure: it's the most powerful force in the world.

Years into the war, with the Allies making advances and the Nazis deep into heinous crimes, a handful of German officers and politicians have decided their country has gone dangerously off-course. The only way to set it straight, they believe, is to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

Their attempt goes awry, losing several men in the process. The conspirators turn to Tom Cruise, a known dissenter gravely wounded in Africa who's been put on key administrative duty.

But the conspiracy is short on ideas. With the politicians and officers squabbling over their new course of action, Cruise comes up with one for them: Kill Hitler and trick the reserve army into arresting the SS and seizing Berlin, thus giving them control of Germany. It's good enough to work. But as strategicians have known since Sun Tzu, no plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy, and it's not long before they run into trouble.

Valkyrie is based on a true story, and one that deserves to be told; it's easy to believe every German man, woman, child, and puppy were goosestepping through Poland as one, but the fact is no organization, no matter how disciplined and singleminded it may seem, is without its dissenters. (Except readers of this column -- we all agree my opinion is law, and hold meetings every Thursday to reconfirm this solemn oath.)

But as often happens with this sort of thing, the facts get in the way of a good story. With so many bit players involved in the conspiracy, most of them blur into a faceless mass of snappy uniforms and agitated bickering. Even Cruise's role as the driving force of the rebellion feels underwritten, though he doesn't seem up for the desperate charisma the part calls for, either. Director Bryan Singer usually makes the most of his movies (X2, The Usual Suspects) by digging into characters as the action mounts, but here he's more interested in ticking off plot points.

And man, are there a lot of them. Valkyrie quickly falls into an exposition-heavy pattern that goes, roughly, "We need a plan; OK here's the plan; damn, the plan's screwed up and we might all die; no, we're fine, OK here's the new plan." It's awfully mechanical, circling itself like a dog chasing its tail, if that dog were made out of aluminum and sprockets rather than dog food and whining.

The conspiracy does gather steam once Cruise and company head down the path of no return. Even knowing they're doomed -- spoiler alert, for the young or the ignorant: we were still fighting the Nazis at the end of the war, and Hitler heroically shot himself -- there's a real kick in watching them try to pull of something so bold, crazy, and noble.

Classic case of too little too late. With some streamlining and a closer focus on its core characters, the story's high drama might have paid off. It has its moments, but Valkyrie is too historical to be properly theatrical.

Grade: C+