Tom Cruise stars as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg in the suspense thriller, Valkyrie, which opens in theaters nationwide today.

MGM

During the more than a decade that he was the leader of Nazi Germany, there were 15 attempts on the life of Adolf Hitler.

The most famous was the final attempt, on July 20, 1944, at the Wolf’s Lair, a remote, heavily guarded secret military compound in the forests of East Prussia. There, on a hot summer day, stalwart and trusted Col. Claus von Stauffenberg left a bomb in a briefcase at the Führer’s feet. The hope was to kill Hitler and many of his top aides and then set into motion a secret plan called Valkyrie, which would overthrow the Nazi regime in Berlin and eventually bring peace to a nation that was facing increased setbacks in the war.

Director Bryan Singer’s long-in-production Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise as von Stauffenberg, is an up-and-down film, with tense moments and suspense balanced with tedious stretches. The film details the plans among high-ranking German military leaders to kill Hitler, the tension-filled moments that led to the assassination attempt itself and the aftermath as the coup leaders began taking over Nazi headquarters in Berlin, even as Hitler, who had come out of the explosion with only minor injuries, frantically tried to reclaim his authority.

The director of such action films as X-Men and Superman Returns gives Valkyrie a rousing opening sequence, in which von Stauffenberg is seriously wounded during an aerial attack by Allied forces on his troop position in the North African desert. Von Stauffenberg had been sidelined to Tunisia by his military friends who feared his increasingly outspoken views on the Nazi regime would get him in hot water if he stayed in Germany.

But after that bomb-burst excitement, Valkyrie slows into an exhaustively detailed introduction to all the various characters involved in the plot as well as their pro-Hitler counterparts. There are some tense moments when Kenneth Branagh turns up as a Nazi officer who attempts an earlier assassination on the Führer. But he’s just one in a merry-go-round of characters one must keep track of. Nearly all of the first half of this two-hour movie is spent setting up the plot by von Stauffenberg and his allies.

Oddly, although we learn all about the assassination plot, we get to know very little about von Stauffenberg or, especially, why he decided to assassinate Hitler at great risk to himself and his family. A little more historical background of the man by writers Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander would have given a better understanding of him and his motives and would have fleshed him out.

Claus von Stauffenberg came from an ancient family of German nobles, which was why he was reluctant to take on the leader of the state for many years, instead being the faithful German who rose through the ranks of the Nazi military regime. However, as a devout Catholic von Stauffenberg began questioning Hitler’s aims at painting himself as an all-knowing, all-powerful, god-like figure. Yet it wasn’t until the middle of World War II, when von Stauffenberg became aware of Hitler’s plans to exterminate Jews and Gypsies, that he became horrified by the monstrous things undertaken in the name of his beloved country and chose to act. All this information is only hinted at in Valkyrie, so Cruise’s character becomes not much more than a standard movie hero who comes from nowhere to join the assassins.

Once the plot is set into motion, however, Valkyrie comes alive with tension and suspense. Cruise plays the colonel as stolid and righteous, yet a man driven to action. Von Stauffenberg is so dead-ahead certain about the correctness of his actions that he refuses to believe his carefully laid out plan is going down in flames, even as Hitler begins broadcasting a radio address to the nation about the assassination attempt. As the net closes in around him he refuses to budge from the office he has taken over in Berlin, the last man standing.

Will he somehow escape the tightening noose? He is, after all, Tom Cruise. So one always holds out hope, which is a plus for the film and for those who may not know the rest of the story.

Singer has surrounded Cruise with top-drawer actors, who make the film relevant and bold. They include Branagh, very good in a sequence where his wine box stuffed with a bomb is found by the Gestapo; Terence Stamp as one of the cautious anti-Hitler plotters, and especially Tom Wilkinson as Gen. Friedrich Fromm, who toys with the plotters before turning strongly against them.

Rhode Island-bred Lilly Kilvert’s design for the production is top notch, recreating many of the real places which help this history come alive.

Valkyrie is a sobering film, especially when one considers how the war might have been altered and history changed if the Valkyrie plot had succeeded. That didn’t happen, but the story is still a gripping one.

*** 1/2Valkyrie

Starring: Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Carice van Houten, Thomas Kretschmann, Terence Stamp.

Rated: PG-13, contains violence, very brief profanity.

mjanuson@projo.com