That was an excellent one.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Blistering performances.

The plot to kill Hitler was a failure. And the film? Hmm. A partial success!The lead cast all give competent performances and deliver the dialogue in unconvincing German-American accents. Except for Mike Gwilym (Hitler), who delivered his lines in a bizarre Welsh-German accent (which does actually work better) for this film before apparently going into retirement aged 40. If only Hitler had done the same! Some of the supporting actors, for example Ian Richardson as General Beck and Helmut Griem (who may have had an advantage with the accent), as Rommel, make more impression.I understand the film is historically accurate, but the pace is all a bit flat. OK, it's aimed at a 'family' audience. But really, a little less conversation, a little more action would have been welcome. This is not a film I'd want to watch again.

The July 20, 1944 a plot to kill German dictator Adolf Hitler by a group of Germans opposed to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and led by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg has caught the attention of filmmakers over the years, the most recent being 2008's Valkyrie. The Plot To Kill Hitler is a 1990 TV movie that details that plot. So what does this dramatization of the plot have to offer? The cast is somewhat mixed. Brad Davis a good choice for the role of Colonel von Stauffenberg thanks to his bearing a good resemblance to the real life figure. Yet Davis comes across as rather flat in his performance for the most part though he has some nice moments such as early in the film when he's coming to terms with the loss of his left hand. Faring somewhat better is Madolyn Smith Osborne as his wife Nina as the movie focuses quite a bit on the relationship between the two of them. The supporting cast fairs somewhat better with Ian Richardson's spot on performance as General Beck, Helmut Griem as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and Jonathan Hyde as Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. That said some of the supporting performances don't work at all such as Rupert Graves as a would be assassin and Mike Gwilym as an over the top Hitler. The result overall is a mixed bag acting wise despite some good performances but that isn't completely the fault of the cast.The production values for The Plot To Kill Hitler are about average for a TV movie. The movie was shot in Eastern Europe and it looks like it. That isn't really a bad thing since it does bare a very good resemblance to Second World War Germany. But it becomes exceedingly obvious in places like the early scene set in Tunisia for instance. Also certain places like Hitler's eastern front headquarters the Wolf's Lair come across as less then convincing for the most part. The costumes and props come across much better in recreating the era then the sets do. Perhaps the best aspects of the production values are the cinematography of Freddie Francis and the fine score done for the film by composer Laurence Rosenthal both of which elevate the movie a bit. The overall result though is less then impressive though.That could really be said about the script by Steven Elkins. Elkins script gets across the basic facts of the July 20 plot but to be honest it really does little else. The dialogue and characterizations are one dimensional to say the least with the only purpose of getting the basic points across. The movie does takes some big liberties with events such as suggesting that the July 20th bomb plot was more or less a spur of the moment event while ignoring the aborted attempt made a few days prior, all done presumably for the sake of getting the basic points across. There's an especially glaring historical error involving Hitler consulting an astrologer about the course of the war, something that was widely rumored but later found to be untrue. The result then is that the movie becomes rather uninteresting for the most part, even for someone interested in the history more then the drama.As a movie, The Plot To Kill Hitler comes across as little more then average between its mixed cast, average production values and less then impressive scripting. As a history lesson, it gets across the basic facts of the July 20th plot even though it takes so considerable dramatic liberties with the events. In short then, it does the job it sets out to do but surprisingly does little else.

Well directed by Lawrence Schiller, a modest well-paced telling of the plot to rid the world of Hitler. This drama is set in 1944, German war hero Count Claus von Stauffenberg(Brad Davis), who lost a hand and an eye in action, ramrods a secretive group of high level officers in the attempt to assassinate Adolph Hitler(Mike Gwilyn). The scheme is daring and methodical; but succeeding would show the German population just what evil Hitler is doing with concentration camps. Plus the group willing to carrying out the plot have been convinced by von Stauffenberg that the Third Reich is crumbling, Hitler is losing his mind and that the German army is actually losing the war.Being made-for-TV, there is little violence to speak of, no strong language and flat acting. Also in the cast: Ian Richardson, Helmut Lohner, Madolyn Smith Osborne, Johathan Hyde and Kenneth Colley.

True story of "Operation Valkyrie", the plot to kill Hitler,and how despite all the odds in it being successful fell completely apart leaving those who executed it ending up being executed themselves by Hitler's secret police, the dreaded Gestapo, and SS troopers.It seem so simple at first with German war hero Count Cluse Von Stauffenberg, Brad Davis, getting together with a number of fellow German Army officers with a secret plan to knock off the German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, Mike Gwilym. With Hitler no longer in charge they then plan to sue for peace with the allies thus preventing their beloved Germany from being plastered off the face of the earth. The plan soon runs into a number of roadblocks with no one willing to risk their lives in a suicidal attempt to kill Hitler along with themselves.Stauffenberg who's already given his right arm as well as left eye, in being wounded during the fighting in North Africa, for the Fatherland isn't that eager to give up his life in stopping that madman, Hitler, from destroying the country that he loves. Hitler plans to fight the remainder of the war to the very last man, as well as woman and child, in his scorched earth strategy of holding off the allied advance thus destroying the German nation and people in the process by doing it.The film has us see how the plot to assassinate Hitler started when the war began to turn against Germany in the early Spring of 1943. With devastating losses in both North Africa and the USSR it became evident to many in the German General Staff that Germany had already lost the war. With only a miracle like the new super-weapons that both Hitler and his Propaganda Minster Joseph Goebbles, Jonathan Hyde, have been boasting about Nazi Germany's days were numbered. It was that stark reality that had Von Stauffenberg decide to go on with the plan to assassinate Hitler. As it turned out the perfect plan had many pitfalls the major one being that even if Hitler was killed would the German Army and people go along with those renegade German officers who killed him? Getting to see Hitler in his bunker-the Wolf's Lair-in East Prussia Stauffenbrg manages to place a suitcase bomb within a few feet of his Fuhrer only to have it placed along side a table leg by another German officer that, with the explosion being directed away not towards the German leader, ended up saving Hitler's life. With Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators thinking that Hitler was killed in the explosion they prematurely came out into the open, in trying to take over the government, and thus with no one in the military as well as general public supporting them sealed their own fate.Stauffenberg and Co. not only ended up losing their lives in their attempt to put an end to the Hitler Regime but the lives of some 5,000 other Germans, mostly their friends and family members, in the remaining nine months that the war in Europe was to continue. As noble as their cause and intentions were in ridding the world of Adolf Hitler the attempt on his life, and him surviving it, only helped not hurt the German Dictator which was the exact opposite that Stauffenberg & Co. expected it to achieve.By miscalculating their support in the German General Staff, a number of whom suddenly got cold feet and switched sides, and the German people Stauffenberg's, and the generals, plan went up in smoke together some nine months later with Hitler's Germany that at the time it failed to eliminate. That feat was accomplished by the victorious allies and ironically Hitler himself who's insane actions, in his conduct of the war, did more to help the allied forces to destroy him and his Nazi Regime then almost anything else!