This could have been a great movie

Rating: Null/10 (1 May 2000)

Minor spoilers. U-571 could have been a great movie. It has suspense, drama, action, and thrills. However, it lacks heart and humor. The truly perplexing reality is that humor and emotion were intertwined with the suspense in the script, yet did not find their way into the film. I have read what was meant to be and went into the theater with expectations that were unfulfilled. Where was the relationship between Andy Tyler and Pete Emmett? For that matter, where was Pete Emmett? In the book Lt. Emmett is the character that brings both heart and humor to story. The relationship of Andy and Pete, best friends since their days in the Academy, was center to giving the reader a reason to care about those characters. Emmett was vibrant and cocky, yet willing to express his vulnerability to his best friend. The rich dialogue between Andy and Pete strengthened both characters, let the reader peek inside their souls, and opened the door to truly caring what happened to these men. To see the friendship and the bond between them allowed one to empathize with characters. In the movie, Emmett is just an expendable body. Aside from the mentioning of the fact that the two are best friends, the only connection we see is the looks between them, in which Jon Bon Jovi conveys more with his eyes and expression in a few brief seconds than he was allowed to convey with his all too brief (edited out) lines. Anyone who has seen Bon Jovi's work knows he is quite a capable dramatic and comedic actor. Writer/director Jonathan Mostow shot himself in the foot by cutting out the work of this man. His performance alone would have brought the film to a higher cognitive and emotional level. U-571 could have been both action packed and thought provoking. It was all there in the story. Anyone could have related to Pete's admission that he was scared and his request that Andy tell his parents he died for something important, if he happened to die and Andy lived. For some unknown reason, they decided to keep only half of what makes a film great. I'm sure it will still do fine at the box office, but it's sad that heart and humor were sacrificed for the sake of... what? A few more explosions? Added lines of technical jargon? A few more shots of the blue-green sea? It's a mystery to me that any writer would leave out the best parts of his story!
See the movie. Then read the book and use your imagination to see what could have been. 7 of 10 stars