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We're sure you've seen the non-stop TV ads and heard all the terrible buzz on Valkyrie. The film, based on a true story about one of several assassination attempts on Hitler by German officers, was pushed back from a summer 2008 release date to the February 2009 dumping ground before getting moved to a Christmas debut. But it's not as bad as what you've heard. The script (written by Usual Suspects Oscar winner Christopher McQuarrie) is fine, Bryan Singer's direction is capable, and the cast features a bevy of talented British actors (including Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, and pretty much everyone in Black Book). In fact, there's really only one problem with the film, but it's a big 'un:
Tom Cruise.
Oh Tom. You try so hard, but maybe you should just go away. While he was more than adequate in Tropic Thunder, in Valkyrie Tom's just out of his league. And that's clear in that his character, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, is the only person in the film without an accent. Really. Everyone else is doing an English or at least vaguely European accent except Tom Cruise. Hey Adolf Hitler, guess who's the traitor in your midst? Could it be the Nazi who sounds American?
The other problem with Tom Cruise is that he always plays Tom Cruise, so in Valkyrie he stars as Nazi Pirate No Accent No Handsy Tom Cruise! It's distracting, to say the least.
Who'd be better as treasonous Colonel von Stauffenberg? If we were casting this film, we'd put Viggo Mortensen in the role (of course, he's our go-to guy for most movies; we'd replace Daniel Craig in Defiance with him too). Viggo's good with the drama, he always becomes his characters, and he can do a goddamn accent.
Spoiler alert: Tom Cruise does not kill Hitler.
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is he really THAT bad in this?
i'm kind of interested in the film for all the positive qualities mentioned here, and yet .. Cruise.
you don't see much of his performance in the trailer so there isn't much to go on, sadly.
I don't really mean to defend Herr Cruise, but had he attempted an accent I suspect you would right now be comparing him to Kevin Costner in Robin Hood. He absolutely could not win in this case, so what do you think he should have done? (Aside from not doing the movie in the first place, which most of us probably would have preferred.)
In this case, I would have preferred a bad accent or a faint semblance of an accent or even a funny voice to no accent at all. Even his Far and Away accent would have been preferable. His lack of accent is just glaring compared to everyone else.
Either everybody does an accent or nobody does an accent, and guess what, everybody did an accent.
Well all of you, obviously Cruise's different accent from the rest of the cast is intended to represent von Stauffenberg's aristorcratic, Schwabian regional accent in contrast to other German accents. Do you think all these Nazis sounded the same to each other? And that German does not have regional and class accents? Von Stauffenberg would have been an outsider and needed to sound different. Of coure by the same reasoning, the real Hitler was Austrian/Bavarian and had an atrocious southern German accent, so should have been depicted in the movie sounding like an Alabama hillbilly. That's what you should be complaining about: the lack of Hillbilly Hitler.
i know nothing about the story (other than the obvious "me try kill bad man with mustache"), but when i've seen the commercials i've thought "i assume cruise's character should have an accent, shouldn't he?" turns out, based on the fact he's playing a REAL PERSON - from germany - he should! regional accent argument aside, i can at least guarantee you the real von stauffenberg didn't sound like he was from colorado. isn't it kind of cruise's JOB to do the research and learn the accent, and listen to audio, etc? it's really just a case of a lazy actor who's scared to go outside his comfort zone, and firmly believes he's above doing the work, etc.
the annoying thing is, i assume Cruise's production company made this movie so he had the power to cast himself and no one had any say in the matter. risky business, indeed.
Ok...hmmm...yeah, I guess spoiler alert for whatever I'm thinking of here.
But hasn't this movie already been made? I'm vaguely remembering some '60-'70s (or maybe later) movie where a German general, I thought with an eye patch, conspires on something and get's executed at the end. It seems like the death scene is a closeup of him standing, lighting a cigarette, and then getting pretty unceremoniously shot.
What movie is this? Or, what am I actually remembering? Is this s subplot in The Desert Fox? My Wikipedia->IMDB searches don't turn up anything that seems right.
Ahem. "Hillbilly Hitler" was the signal that my comment was ironic. I thought the Median Seattle Irony Dryness Index should have been higher for that of Auburn. My mistake.
But we just want so badly for Hillbilly Hitler to be real!
The part about Hitler having a thick southern accent is real, according to German speakers I've known, who say his rolled R's sound funny to them. So there is no need to stop believing in Hillbilly Hitler.
The part about Cruise's accent being by design to reflect von Stauffenberg's is the BS part.