Valkyrie

Another film about the second world war, another film in which a Hollywood A-lister gets to star in a dramatisation of a real series of events. This time it's Tom Cruise, possibly one of Hollywood’s biggest draws, appearing as a German soldier who becomes involved in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Eagle's Lair in 1944.

I was wondering how Hollywood would go about depicting a failed attempt on Hitler's life, an attempt after which almost all of the conspirators were either strung up or shot. After all, Hollywood doesn't normally get on too well with stories of failure. Rather than any dramatic re-write of history, the film concentrates on emphasising the heroism of what the bomb plotters did. They risked certain death while attempting to bring the Nazi regime down - no less than troops on the Allied side were doing.

I assume that certain liberties have been taken with the historical fact in order to make the characters more interesting, but overall I was pleased with what I saw on screen. Nice to see that the Hollywood world can make a film in which not all Germans soldiers are portrayed as Hitler-loving and in which the German people are trying to do something to bring down the tyrant from within instead of sitting and waiting for salvation from Roosevelt.

One dismal bit of the film was the accent of the guy who plays Hitler. For the most part the accents were good; rather than putting on silly German accents the cast all talk in their own native English-speaking voices. The guy that plays Hitler though puts on a slightly German accent. I was wondering whether this was because the producers didn't think the audience could cope with a Hitler who spoke the queen's English, so had to ensure he had a German accent to make him seem more sinister. I hope this isn't the case, but there doesn't seem to be any other reason for it.