I’m not going to lie: I went to see Valkyrie with my poison quill sharpened.

Even before his widely publicized advocacy of Scientology made him fodder for the tabloids of the world, I was never a Tom Cruise fan. The cockiness that was so exploited in all his film roles long ago crossed over into obnoxiousness. And the fact that this was such a troubled production, arriving on screen long after its initial release date, certainly seemed to point to a turkey.

In fact, it’s an impressive historical drama with a strong ensemble cast that includes Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Carice van Houten, Thomas Kretschmann, Terence Stamp, and Eddie Izzard. Cruise may get the lion’s share of the onscreen time, but it is by no means his vehicle. And while he may seem inappropriately cast as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the German officer of aristocratic background who led the July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, research shows that he is in fact apt for the part. The name may conjure up a fussy old guy with a big white moustache, but Stauffenberg was 36 when he was executed, considerably younger than Cruise. That he doesn’t come out of the movie alive is no surprise: I can’t imagine that many people who go to see this won’t already know that Hitler was not in fact assassinated by a conspiracy of his officers. Yet even with that hurdle, director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie (who last collaborated on The Usual Suspects) have put together a suspenseful and intriguing historical docudrama. Stauffenberg and his allies realized that killing Hitler was not enough, and devised an elaborate plan to use the reserve army to seize power by making it seem as if the SS was trying to stage a coup. The film’s biggest problem is that the plot was so large—200 people were executed for their involvement and 700 were arrested—that it can’t adequately be covered in a two-hour movie. And even if we know their plot is doomed to fail, it’s inevitably stirring to watch men of honor stand up in opposition to acts of evil. Valkyrie tells a story that may better have been served by a television miniseries, but it’s an engrossing story nonetheless.

—m. faust