Valkyrie

Tom Cruise plays Claus von Stauffenberg, a disaffected colonel in the German Army who becomes the lynchpin of a plot to assassinate Hitler. Anyone who got at least a C in history knows what happened. (I won’t spoil it for the D and F students.) The fact that this retelling is pulse-poundingly tense from start to finish is a testament to the production Cruise assembled. Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, X-Men) brings out the believable best in Cruise and draws out taut performances from the all-star supporting cast: Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Eddie Izzard, Terence Stamp and Tom Wilkinson. He tightly frames scenes both sweeping and intimate. He gives a script that risked overindulgence just the right measure of grandeur. Feather River Cinemas, Paradise Cinema 7 and Tinseltown. Rated PG-13