Valkyrie

A terrific, tense WW2 film anchored by another solid Tom Cruise performance, VALKYRIE is a throwback to classic war films.

Cruise stars as Colonel Van Stauffenberg, part of a growing Nazi resistance at the highest levels of the German forces.

Seeing that Hitler is out of his mind and tortured by the madman's actions, Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators plan to kill him themselves.

Bill Nighy (Love Actually) is a fellow Colonel terrified of being discovered by the brutal SS.

Comedian Eddie Izzard is terrific in a purely dramatic role as a communications man key to the plot.

Tom WIlkinson, Kenneth Branaugh and Terence Stamp add gravitas in their roles and writer Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Edge of Tomorrow) crafts actual events into a highly polished suspense thriller that feels like 1973's "Day of the Jackal" blended with the more recent "Allied".

McQuarrie would go on to write and direct Cruise in the last two outstanding "Mission Impossible" movies, proving to be the most reliable filmmaking duo in action films of the modern day.

The film manages to blend enough of Cruise's personal life and family to really feel the stakes as he risks everything to take down Hitler.

Filmed on many of the locations where the events actually took place, it looks fantastic and authentic down to the smallest detail.

There was some controversy at the time for portraying any members of the Nazi regime in a favorable light, but that quickly fades as you watch Von Stauffenberg risk everything for their mission.

The controversy didnt hurt the box office, VALKYRIE grossed over $200 million worldwide, putting it in the all time Top 5 WW2 films.

Another winner from Cruise and McQuarrie, VALKYRIE gets an A.

( WW2 film buffs will notice a famous line from a 60's classic."The trick is not to be around when they go off", is the same line David Niven said to Gregory Peck's character in The Guns of Navarone.)