Valkyrie

Released: 2008
Drama
Starring: Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Eddie Izzard
Director: Bryan Singer
Running Time: 121 minutes

The breakdown:
Based on a true story, this is the last attempt to assassinate Hitler and it fails, as have all the others, 15 in total.

Cruise plays (with no German accent I'll remind you) Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg, a German Army officer who is recruited to join a secret group of Germans determined to kill Hitler and take over before the country is defeated in WWII.

Unfortunately, everything works against the group and the final plan is unsuccessful, and they are all found out.

Tom Cruise produced this movie and it shows.  First off, the only way he's going to be in movies now is if he produces them himself, obviously here, he gave himself lead.  Second, he saved all the good lines for himself and hogged the spotlight.  The supporting cast of this movie is excellent, there are so many good actors, it's too bad that the movie wasn't better.  The director just didn't know how to handle this subject matter.  I think this could have been a great film, one maybe even nominated for an Oscar had it been done differently.  I think Cruise and Singer had a lot to do with the failings of this film.  It's an interesting and heartbreaking story where only a few brave people tried to stand up against one of the most evil human beings to walk the planet.  You can't help but care about what happened.  It's just so sad that all the heroes of this movie fell short of their plans that would've done so much for the entire world.  It's frustrating to think about what could have happened, had they succeeded....how many lives could've been saved.

It's a sad movie to watch for its true story content and deaths of the good guys, it's also hard to watch for me, because Tom Cruise himself, didn't try to do a German accent, nor did he let any other actor on set do one.  Very distracting to me if you're playing a true life German hero.

Anyway, I give it 3 1/2 tickets stubs out of 5 purely for the fascinating story presented and the supporting cast doing a great job.