There's one brief moment in this otherwise cool and competent historical thriller when we get a taste of potential greatness, when a man with one arm and only a couple of fingers has to assemble and hide a bomb as Nazis are trying to enter the room. There are times when we really miss Alfred Hitchcock.

“;Valkyrie”; is, or course, the big-budget Tom Cruise thriller in which he plays aristocratic Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, the point man in the July 20, 1944, assassination plot to kill Adolf Hitler. It's a perfectly true story, one that has mystical tinges of schadenfreude in today's guilt-tinged German culture, and has inspired a half-dozen films prior. This is the biggest and starriest of the lot, and has director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie (”;The Usual Suspects”;) holding the reins.

Here's the real deal: von Stauffenberg and dozens of co-conspirators teamed up to whack Adolf and then stage a coup to seize control of the government in a bid to team up with the British and Americans against the Russians. I'm not sure which end of it represents the zenith of wishful thinking. “;Valkyrie”; is the title of Hitler's own plan to stabilize Berlin using regional troops, and the plotters cleverly use it against him. Just killing Hitler wasn't enough, the whole government had to be seized. They almost got away with it ...

...But Hitler, that lucky bastard, survived von Stauffenberg's briefcase bombing and the unusual suspects were all shot and hanged and the Fourth Reich had nine more months of Armageddon ahead, during which time the horrific death camps were revealed to the world.

But we know this already. Tom Cruise doesn't kill Hitler. This isn't “;Mission: Impossible,”; it's a careful recounting of the known facts of the actual plot, served up with brio by Singer, who cheerfully adds a little surreal creepiness involving a glass eye.

The movie, then, isn't going to fly on the basis of action and adventure. By necessity, it's pasty guys in green uniforms whispering to each other. The trick would have been to add a bit more compulsion and complexity to the characters so the inevitable mind games that develop would set off fireworks.

This is where “;Valkyrie”; disappoints. Von Stauffenberg natters on about how Hitler has “;stained”; the honor of noble Germany, as if taking out this one politician will set things right. In reality, the conspirators and soldiers involved in the attempted coup were more concerned with Hitler's ineptness as a war leader than his vile ideology.

Singer and McQuarrie make the assumption that audiences today are conversant in the nuances of National Socialism. Hitler and his cronies are the baddies in the film, but only because the foreground characters say they are. You never see it, the horror and the waste inflicted upon mankind by the Nazi regime. Instead, it's a parade of Nazi chic, and Hitler is essayed as a creepy Uncle Ernie. This omission of cause makes the actions of the conspirators comparatively lightweight.

Cruise is just fine as von Stauffenberg, BTW, although his motivations are shortchanged by the script and you're distracted by the CGI removal of his hands. There's a fine supporting cast, notably Tom Wilkinson as a will-he-or-won't-he general who plays both sides.

The film was probably an easy pitch in today's Hollywood. Here's an actual, heroic story of a nation's citizens who are embarrassed by the antics of their elected leader, someone who is willfully diminishing the moral stature of a once-great country. Can you read between the lines? But there is a big difference between assassinating a murderous, maniacal dictator and impeaching an inept doofus. Impeachment is apparently harder.