the movie, VALKYRIE (Stauffenberg)??

[markabilly]

Thought about going on Jan 1st, but the critics seem to tank it from what I can tell. Has anyone seen it or have any comments?

Yeah Tom C is probably a mistake in the role, but it would be an interesting piece of history for a movie, with moral dilemmas, what to do, who is the patriot and the traitor, and who is the villain.

I used to provoke people by saying that I do not beleive no one jumps up in the morning and says I am going to do evil today....they always think they are doing right.

Indeed, in my opinion, Hitler was convinced that he was doing what was right for Germany and being a true patriot, right up until the point when he knew beyond doubt that the "German people" had failed him and he blew his brains out. :grenade:

So any one see the movie and have any thoughts?

[Jag_Warrior]

I haven't seen it. It could be a good movie from a great story, unless Hollyweird elected to b#stardize it for PC reasons.

[Eki]

I heard on the radio today that German critics liked it and were positively surprised it was a decent historically realistic movie instead of a typical Hollywood gung ho action flick they had been afraid of.

[markabilly]

Saw the movie (finally!!), and thought it was very good, almost a best picture type movie,

Problems that I see: (1) Everytime I see TC, i think of top gun and that nascar racing movie, so I kept thinking that TC was going to let out with "I feel the need for ...the need for speed" at some point. Toss in a touch of the original mission impossible, and so.....

(2) Remember Rick in Casablanca?? You could feel his angst as he struggled over his lost love, what to do and so forth.....But VALKYRIE was like Born on the Fourth of July, where tom played the war vet. In "Born", Tom is a big patriot, goes to and is wounded in Nam, goes through hell getting treated, then suddenly goes anti-war with out any real transition, like how do you go from one state to the other??? In "Born", he goes to an anti-war rally and suddenly there he is, all anti-war

Same for this movie, one day he seems to want to go down fighting for Hitler, then a short time later, he wants to blow him up, along with a bunch of other germans who want the same thing, including one who turns on the others to save his own hide.

I think the movie would have been far more interesting if it had really contrasted more of the moral issues, such as being a traitor to Hitler or a traitor to mankind, how were the germans justifying their loyalty to Hitler, then turning....the cowardice of people who lacked the courage to step up boldly and sacrifice their own lives when so many are dying around them and their own personal future seems to be very dark and without hope...why not just walk in there and give Hitler a big hug and pull the plug, even though you go with it......or even the coward who turns, trying to save himself.....discuss those questions and issues....

Worth seeing. Especially given that it does not have the usual holllywood crap about such history, and there are some very good tense moments in the movie, so I give it a thumbs up

As to Casablanca, hollywood did not have the time to screw it up, they just went with the flow as the srcipt was pretty much being done as the movie progressed (yes literally, they started at the beginning of the story and shot most scenes in sequence writing lines as they went--they had three different endings for the movie and did the the final one first, liked it and so wrapped up the movie), and suprize, a movie very entertaining, yet with very serious issues about life.....saw it the other day as well, ignore the dated hollywood junk, and it remains my all time fav.

sad is that this movie has a story that if told right, could have had the same or more impact---and was based upon historical fact

[Mark in Oshawa]

Markabilly...you likely have hit the nail on the head on why the Germans like it. The Germans are loathe to admit they fought so hard for Hitler today but they did and probably with good reasons in their eyes at the time. Stauffenberg's story as told in the movie doesn't really examine the process they need to think about on why they had to suddenly wake up to the fact Hitler lead them down a garden path. I think the less time they think about it, the better.

I haven't seen the movie yet but plan on seeing it at some point.