Valkyrie: Cruise Is Crazy, But (probably) Isn't a Nazi

My dad and I just returned from seeing Valkyrie, the story of a failed assassination attempt on Hitler by a conspiracy consisting primarily of Wehrmacht officers in 1944. I have to tell you, people have been coming out of the woodwork to tell me they hate Tom Cruise and this movie almost as much as they hate Nazis [insert intricate Scientology/Oprah's couch/Nazi joke here].

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I refuse to drag us all through the discussion of whether we hate Valkyrie because we hate Tom Cruise. In terms of Hollywood wingnut freaks, he's actually pretty benign.

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I won't go into the plot either, but here is what really happened. Short version: the movie is pretty accurate. That statement doesn't require a qualification, like "pretty accurate as far as Hollywood goes". It's just "pretty accurate".

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The biggest complaint I've heard is that the movie is boring and poorly paced. I hate to be a pedant, but let's refer to the paragraph and link above... this really happened. I'm not a turtleneck clad indie movie geek by any stretch, but if you were waiting for Vin Deisel to slide into the Nazi conference room on a burning motorcycle and stuff a plasma grenade down Hitler's leiderhosen while grunting an obscenity laced one-liner, y'all came to the wrong hoe-down.

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The second big complaint is that Cruise's acting is wooden and boring. Cruise was asked to play a veteran military officer in an army that did it's best to hearken back to the ideals of Teutonic knighthood. Traditional stoicism was also a big movement in the Wehrmacht, especially later in the war when the military realized they didn't have much of Germany to cling to other than the national honor they themselves were generating by fighting honorably. In this respect, I thought Cruise nailed it.

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The last and most absurd complaint I heard was about the accents. Some actors went authentic German, most others sported British accents, and Cruise and a few others spoke in American accents. Honestly. Why is it that when the cast are supposed to be speaking a different language, movie-goers expect, nay demand, to hear a British accent? Is it like that in London too? Do all their German soldiers sound like they're from Utah? If you want to pick lingual nits in movies, then only go to movies with subtitles or shut up. And shut up In English.

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Oh, and while we're on the language thing, Valkyrie did the second best audience language transition moment I've seen in a movie. Second best, mind you.