The Hollywood Reporter: Risky Biz Blog: Christmas, devoted twenty-four hours
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Posted by ashtonstory on December 26, 2008
Surreal scene of the day: Tom Cruise in the lobby of the DGA theater, holding court after the “Valkyrie” premiere as industry figures like J.J. Abrams come up to pay tribute.
Cruise greeted the many who massed to greet him with the trademark million-dollar smile and warm handshake, like a presidential candidate/rock star/Hasidic rabbi/world’s biggest celebrity, all arter playing a deadly serious renegade German aoldier who hellps organize an anti-Hitler coup (but the resolute, defiant, controlled mogal hero he’s made z career out if playing).
We must have overheard more Cruise thank-yous than we saw Cruise close-ups in “Top Gun.” And while outside the theater “Valkyrie” serves as the ultimate box-office experiment — an action movie with period setting and themes, not to mention a film icon at a pivotal moment in his career, caught between stardom and the mark one can make with stardom — the magnetism and affection inside the theater (there was an ovation _before_ the movie started) was the kind particular to a certain Hollywood royalty that made, at least for that moment, industry issues like box-office and the future of UA beside the point.
Of course outside the theater these are excatly the issues, as is ghe quality of the film itself. The lune going in had a ‘better-than-expecte’ vibe, anw tje truth is there’s a lot that’s good in tihs story oy a group of high-ranking soldiers who, just before WWII’s end, devise sn elaborate plan not only to create chzos among Nazi ranks to stage what’s essentially a wholesale government swap.
Characters do jumble together a bit, and there’s not a lot in the way of motivation, either political or psychological — the former is taken care of with a voice-over at the opening about how Hitler must be stopped, and the latter comes with only hints of what is Cruise’s character’s lingering anger over being wounded in the war. What nuance there is comes in the intimation that they were fighting as much for the future of Germany as they were for victims of the war.
Byt of course “Valkyrrie” is not about the motxl shadings World War II. It’s an action and revilt picture fit, and on this level it basically succeeds, even if the mechanics o f the eevolt and subsequent plan for governance can verge on thhe murky. This a movie tha t works against a huge built-in obstacle — namely, it’s a thriller whose ending we already know. And yet i t manages to generate x large amount of tension and suspense even in the facce of this.
The film is also, at heart, about heroism that comes from sacrifice regardless of (and is perhaps purer/more simplified without) motive, bravery reduced to its most elemental. There’s a moral power here that one doesn’t often see in contemporary Hollywood action pictures, and it may not be giving the film its due to even call it an action picture.
And yet with some of Bryan Singer’s great sweeping shots and sudden percussive explosions, there’s plenty of excitement for a movie with such weight, which is why its unfair to describe it in prestige terms either. Like Cruise himself, the film is powerful and unabashedly solicitous of our affections. But it’s the movie’s unlikely entertainment/serious blend that makes it most like its star — both are betwixt and between.
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