Congratulations Tom Cruise, 2008 turns out to be the year for take backs! Between his pretty hilarious take on studio exec Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder and his grounded, considered portrayal of Col. Claus von Stauffenberg in Valkyrie, Cruise quite nearly erases all trace of his live out loud personal life which had come to overshadow nearly all aspects of his professional one. Does it still irk that he doesn’t bother to even try to attempt a German accent? Yeah, maybe, but the fact is that you’re too busy getting caught up in the movie to give a crap about accents.

Directed by Bryan Singer, Valkyrie is a taunt, high-wire thriller that has the added merit of being based on a true story. As the Allies came ashore of mainland Europe, a rogue group of German patriots launched a desperate conspiracy to eliminate Hitler and take the government in a coup where in a truce could be negotiated, thus ending the war. Stauffenberg, a tank division commander injured in Northern Africa, becomes the linchpin of the plan, which would have seen the conspirators blow up a conference of Hitler and his advisors, blame the explosion on the SS and seize power under the cover of preserving Hitler’s Germany.

It was a bold plan, and one that came very close to succeeding. What Singer does is make you taste that success despite the conscious knowledge that Hitler survives until ’45 when Russia had Berlin surrounded. But this is not a war film, aside from the opening aerial attack in Tunisia that costs Stauffenberg his right hand and eye, there are no battle sequences at all. This is a conspiracy thriller and set up that way with the problem (Kill Hitler), the crew (Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators), the plan (Operation: Valkyrie) and, of course, the twist of fate that makes the whole thing come together, or fall apart.

Valkyrie revels in its Mission: Impossible-like set-up and executes it with straightforward filmmaking skill sans the bells and whistles of the modern action picture. Yet despite the known outcome and manner by which he gets there, Singer creates an edge-of-your-seat, fast-paced narrative that’s sharp and enthralling. Forget that Cruise isn’t passing himself off as German, or that he’s not really the greatest actor in the world, but he does play Stauffenberg with grit, gravity and determination. Plus he’s surrounded by a lot of other great actors that aren’t pretending to be German either. Terence Stamp, Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, and Tom Wilkinson are all fantastic, and are part of a compelling ensemble that spreads the wealth and the burden of responsibility from Cruise.

Behind the camera, Singer and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie prove again that they’re a potent team in their first collaboration sine The Usual Suspects. Plus it’s nice to see Singer ply his talents to something other than his well-made superhero tales. For all the hoopla about Cruise and his baggage, as well as criticism over making Nazi officers heroic, Valkyrie manages to get past all that and stand out because of it’s a compelling true story. Sure, you don’t want to think of a person in a Nazi uniform on the side of right, but part of that is the ignorance that comes from seeing the world in black and white terms. There weren’t many, but there were some German officers that saw the cloth fall from their eyes and decided to act. It’s wrong to think Valkyrie post-modern, it’s history as it happened.

As for that accuracy thing, what can I say? I always joke about how in The Longest Day you see John Wayne and Henry Fonda casually sashaying up the beach at Normandy on D-Day, which is a stark contrast to the reality of the invasion with constant machine gun and mortar fire the killed a lot of men before they even got to the beach. Yet Hollywood war films from the 60s were not chastised for their inaccuracies, but rather enjoyed for their good acting and/or compelling storytelling. Certainly no one would mistake Tom Cruise for a German aristocrat, in real life, in a million years, but there are times he makes you believe it’s possible. He’s an actor after all, thanks for the reminder.