All Style No Substance

Rating: Null/10 (25 April 2000)

When I first heard about the movie U-571 it hadn't been made yet. So, for about a year I waited for what sounded like what was going to be a great submarine movie. When I read the plot I knew for me it would be a problem. I prefer something closer to the historical record. But, ok, it's only a movie. I'll give'em the plot. But in return I'd like to have I don't know maybe some well defined characters, some memorable dialogue, and perhaps something I hadn't seen before in a sub movie. You'll get nothing like that here. At least the old sub movies of Hollywood after the war, while the effects weren't there had the stars: Gable, Lancaster, in Run Silent, Run Deep; James Garner in Up Periscope. In U-571 we get Matthew McConaughey. I'm not a fan. But considering the script I guess he did a hell of a job. And if you've seen Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot, well you'll see that the best scenes in this flick (except one) were lifted without credit from that great movie. In fact the first 15 minutes of Das Boot are better than this entire film. Don't believe me check it out.