German critics slate Tom Cruise's performance in Valkyrie

Tom Cruise made an excellent sword-swishing American samurai. He even saved the Western world a few times – but he does not quite make the grade as a German war hero.

That was the first verdict of German film critics after the New York premiere of Valkyrie, the Hollywood re-make of one of the country's most sensitive historical episodes: the unsuccessful military plot to kill Hitler in July 1944.

It marks the end of months of nail-biting tension among German cultural commentators and historians. Would Cruise make a hash out of playing Claus Count Schenk von Stauffenberg, the very model of a Good German?

Well, yes, according to Der Tagesspiegel, the Berlin daily.


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"The only thing that can definitely be said about this cinema adventure is that Tom Cruise, who has been damaged by his bizarre talk show behaviour, may well continue storming the heights of the Scientology hierarchy as a Thetan, but his image as an actor has been finally ruined by Valkyrie," said the paper's critic.

Valkyrie, he concluded, was set to fail at the box office and miss out for the Oscars. "It doesn't dare to be popcorn cinema and at the same time lacks any conceptual brilliance."

It was always going to be difficult to please the Germans. There have been four previous German productions depicting Stauffenberg's attempt to blow up Hitler by placing a briefcase bomb next to him during a military briefing; each has depicted Stauffenberg as a near-saint, the closest the country has to a modern military hero.

He acted not only out of patriotism but also as a member of an aristocratic caste whose sense of honour had been upset by SS thuggery and the incompetence of Hitler.

The Germans were sure, in advance of the premiere, that Cruise wasn't up to the job.

Berthold Schenk Count von Stauffenberg, eldest son of the resistance hero – Hitler had him shot – told Cruise to go back to America. Some commentators doubted that a Scientologist could ever capture Stauffenberg's spirituality. Welt am Sonntag reckoned: "Cruise as Stauffenberg is about as deep as a bowl of corn-flakes."

The first notices are a little more charitable. The film, runs the consensus, is not as bad as it could have been. But Cruise, well what could you expect from Top Gun?

"If you look at the long list of his credits over the past 25 years," said the Die Welt critic, Hanns-Georg Rodek, “then he comes over best as an American hero, someone who battles for respect with aggression and energy. But Stauffenberg was a German hero, with aristocratic bearing, and Cruise cannot carry that off."

"His Stauffenberg is honorable and serious and determined – but why the young count managed to draw so many people in his wake is not conveyed by Cruise," writes Rodek.

The British supporting cast, Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy and Tom Wilkinson – who all play stiff-backed Prussian officers – manage just fine.

The film does not appear in Germany until January 20 and it may be that the public will take a more gentle view. Certainly the mass circulation Bild gave it a generous plug – "A cinematic monument for a German hero".

The Oscar-winning German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is an enthusiast. "It should be compulsory viewing for all German school-children," he said after the premiere, and there really is no greater praise in Germany than saying that something should be put on the national curriculum.

The film has been dogged by misfortune, as if spooked by some ancient Prussian curse. Parts of the film had to be re-shot after they were damaged in the photo-lab.

Politicians complained when Cruise wanted to use the Defence Ministry courtyard, where Stauffenberg was actually executed, as a film set. Eleven extras fell off a truck and demanded millions in compensation .

Perhaps that is what the critics meant when they opined yesterday: "This film is Hollywood with the brakes on."




source:the london times