With last fall's box-office flop "Lions for Lambs" hanging over his head, the buzz is that Tom Cruise's $100 million film 'Valkyrie' is looking to be slaughtered at the box office as well.
In the film he plays Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, a real-life Wehrmacht officer who plotted to kill Adolf Hitler. But as Roger Friedman pointed out, the real problem is that Cruise plays him with an eye patch, a withered limb and "a California accent reminiscent of Jerry Maguire." Oh, snap!
Friedman writes for Foxnews, "Valkyrie is a set up for not only failure, but ridicule. Take for example this line of dialogue that is spoken to Cruise/Claus by one of his Nazi associates: 'When the SS catches you they will pull you apart like warm bread.'"
Oh mein Gott! Did German officers really talk like that in pre-Pillsbury Dough boy days?
Despite the fact that the real Stauffenberg was 6'3" (think Goran Visnjic) and Tom is 5'6" and they look nothing alike , Stauffie is a national hero to many Germans. Cruise has totally miscalculated in casting himself here. He's of been better off playing the short Hilter.
After Valkyrie is released in the fall, there's questions about the direction that the Cruiser's career will take and it doesn't look promising. He doesn't have much lined up - he's filmed a cameo in Ben Stiller’s "Tropic Thunder" while ridiculously wearing a fat suit, then he's doing a comedy called "Men", directed by Todd Phillips (“Old School,” “Starsky and Hutch”), and another Ben Stiller project called “The Hardy Men”. But where are the BIG movies for Tom?
Sources say Paramount would like to do “Mission: Impossible 4” but are thinking of casting a new young star, or an M:I team the way it was originally portrayed in the 1960s TV series.
“Would I like to do Mission: Impossible”? asked one Paramount exec rhetorically. “Yes, but not starring Tom Cruise.”
It's a shame this wasn't made as a German language production since the German film industry makes outstanding WWII films from the German POV including 'Das Boot', 'Stalingrad', and 'Downfall'.
