Much has been made of Tom Cruise's starring role in the historical thriller Valkyrie.  Cruise remains a tabloid darling and controversial figure in the media.  So, it's unsurprising that early reviews of Valkyrie focused on Cruise – his lack of German accent and the fact that he's Tom Cruise seemed to be enough to give the move a resounding thumbs down by most critics.

But the movie itself, about the July 20th plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler, is more than just a showpiece for a single actor.  By focusing on Cruise, most critics have missed the point of the film.

Director Bryan Singer seems to have a fascination with WWII Germany.  This much is obvious from his earlier films, Apt Pupil and X-Men (in which the movie's villain was a survivor of the Holocaust). 
His affinity for the subject matter is evident, both in the faithful historical reenactment (right down to the errors made by von Stauffenberg that allowed Hitler to escape the bombing attempt with minor injuries) and in the accurate recreation of the zeitgeist.

By the time that Cruise's Claus von Stauffenberg joined the German resistance there had already been multiple attempts on Hilter's life – all unsuccessful largely due to either indecision or inaction by the German Resistance movement. 

It's in depicting the uncertainty, in the face of the spirit of the age, that the ensemble cast shines.  Each actor gives a nuanced performance in their portrayal of men torn between love of country and oaths of loyalty.  In an early scene, in which Kenneth Branaugh's Major-General von Tresckow must retrieve a failed bomb from and avoid discovery by Tom Hollander's suspicious Colonel Brant, the tension builds like a slowly-coiling spring.

Contrast this with later scenes when news begins to spread that Hitler has been killed.  In the tears of a stenographer or the horror of a minor file clerk, the audience sees the level to which Hitler's seduction extended.

The results leave the viewer with the overall sense of tragedy at the unrealized potential:  What if the location of the conference hadn't been moved?  What if the second bomb had been left in von Stauffenberg's e briefcase? What if the briefcase had remained where von Stauffenberg had placed it?  What if one or two key outsiders had not given into their fear at just the right moment?

Singer does a masterful job of portraying the resistance's coup as a house of cards – destined to collapse with the failure of the assassination attempt.