I saw Valkyrie last night. Unless I missed something, every actor spoke in a British accent (not German) except Tom Cruise, who made me feel like I was listening to Lt. McCaffery take on Col. Nathan R. Jessup. Only this time in Nazi Germany. The movie is okay, I think. I felt very uncomfortable with all the swastika backdrops everywhere. Its easier when Hitler is a stock character (like in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crudsade") than when he is very real (like here or in the far superior movie "Downfall.") There is a scene in which von Staffenberg visits the Wolf's Lair with Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels. It was hard to suspend disbelief with Maverick meeting three very real personifications of evil.
The beginning of the movie has subtitles, and Cruise himself speaks in German. Then they do a thing with languages like Sean Connery does in "The Hunt for Red October, closing onto his lips until German becomes American English. Why not just keep the subtitles? This could accomplish two things: 1) Cruise is a big enough movie star to open a movie with subtitles, the first such movie most Americans would ever see. 2) Crowds would be forced to shut the hell up because everyone would be reading.
One more thing: If they wanted to bomb Hitler, why go to the trouble of sabotage? Why not just show him a screening of Mission Impossible 3?
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