The Best Nazi



Colonel von Stauffenberg gives Snake Plissken a run for his money.
Photo courtesy of imdb.

As if Tom Cruise hasn’t pulled off the impossible* on enough occasions, he yet again remarkably becomes a character we never knew could actually exist: a good Nazi. Sure, Edward Norton was a bit of a badass in American History X, but at the end of the day, he was still a white boy rape victim until renouncing his dedication to the Führer.

In Valkyrie, Cruise shakes up Deutschland as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a high-ranking official who heads up an inside operation to take out his boss, AKA Hitler. Helping Cruise out is a wide cast of prestigious actors/sagacious old dudes, including Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Eddie Izzard, Terence Stamp, and Tom Wilkinson (OK, Eddie Izzard is more of a transvestite/comedian, but the other four still count).

Granted, even with the ever-constant presence of Cruise’s powerhouse performance, the film still might have been in danger of becoming not just a sausage fest, but a sausage fest of Nazi bureaucrats swigging whiskey in pampered suites. For this reason, the film introduces Carice van Houten, who’s actually Dutch, not German, but who the hell cares? She’s ridiculously hot, and is therefore the wife of Tom Cruise (although her figure is mysteriously stellar for having pumped out so many little von Stauffernbergs).

This was director Bryan Singer’s first film following Superman Returns. As far as heroism goes, Cruise just makes the blue spandex seem flat-out silly, even without the red underwear. As the Memorial to the German Resistance reads, they “bestowed an eternally vigilant symbol” by sacrificing their lives for “freedom, justice, and honor.” This in addition to rockin’ an eyepatch.

This is why Tom Cruise will always be…the best Nazi.

*No pun intended.