Cruise credible, sincere as Hitler’s would-be assassin

Re “Cruise ‘distractingly bad’ in Valkyrie” (Review,Dec. 26) –

I think that The Examiner has perpetrated a howling injustice by printing, without comment, Christy Lemire’s unsympathetic review of the movie Valkyrie, now showing at the Galaxy Theatres in Peterborough. Ms. Lemire evidently has it in for the American actor, Tom Cruise, who plays the part of Claus Schenk Count von Stauffenberg, the principle actor in the plot to assassinate Hitler. Cruise bears an uncanny physical resemblance to the real Stauffenberg (though he is not as tall).

Ms. Lemire bemoans the fact that Cruise’s “hard, flat American accent” causes him to stand out in every scene. I disagree. I could detect only one or two instances where Cruise’s American accent was noticeable; now and then it almost mirrored, as mine often does, that of the English actors taking the part of the Germans in the movie.

Cruise does not have the dramatic talent of some of the English actors in the movie, nor is he convincing as a German nobleman, but he gives a resoundingly creditable performance as the ill-fated Stauffenberg. Ms. Lemire writes that, “We never get a sense of the inner conflict, of the doubt he may have felt in betraying his duties. . .”

The film begins with a mass recitation in German of the Duty of the German Soldier, in which every member of the armed forces must swear fealty to the German Vaterland, though during Hitler’s reign, he had to swear fealty to the Fuhrer. The film depicts the treasonable actions of German officers who had sworn this oath. If Ms. Lemire can think of a greater source of underlying tension, more power to her.

If Cruise did not agonize enough to suit Ms. Lemire, perhaps the words of Nina von Stauffenberg, describing her husband, taken from her daughter’s biography of her mother, give a clue to the person Cruise was portraying. “He let things come to him, then made up his mind. . .”

The film is faithful to the story in every respect. It is worth seeing, not only as a historical record, and I will revisit it, perhaps more than once. If Cruise can be faulted for his portrayal of von Stauffenberg, it is not through any lack of sincerity on his part. One has only to see him in the pre-film interview to understand that. He was not just acting.

(Source: The Peterborough Examiner)

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