On the edge...of your tolerance

Rating: 4/10 (7 November 2000)

In short terms: "U-571" is maybe the second worst war film of the 90s, worst being the vastly overrated "Three Kings". The acting is wooden, I'd say plastic at best. McConaughey is totally misplaced as captain and Keitel does one of his worst roles. Rest of the crew is just bunch of pretty boys with make-up dirt and sweat on their faces. Dialogue is ridiculous and so is the plot. You might ignore these issues by thinking it's "just a semi-fictional WWII adventure flick and tries to be nothing more than that" read more on why I couldn't just think so...
This sub film was clearly marketed to the audience that was attracted to WWII movies by the excellent "Saving Private Ryan" and questionable "Thin Red Line" who haven't seen magnificent 1981 sub movie, "Das Boot". The director has taken plot from actual WWII event, the capturing of Enigma Coding machine, and reworked history to Hollywood standards. So the heroes have to be Americans and the cast consists of some hot young actors and even a pop star, who fancies acting. Young actors themselves can't handle the task so there has to be also an experienced father figure in secondary role, and Harvey Keitel fills that slot. But then of course, the crew can't be totally white, so there has to be a black crew member too so no-one could claim the movie to be racist, like the US Navy in fact was in WW2. But of course, this is a fictional WWII adventure film, so who cares about minor details?
The first scenes look like direct rip-offs from "Das Boot", with Germans sinking British ship. The German sub suffers engine breakdown and some casualties in a depth charge attack. They are forced to surface, but don't mistakenly feel sympathy for their misfortune, since the same crew is later shown machine-gunning helpless lifeboat full of sailors in a senseless scene. It's only meaning is to prove they are fanatic nazis and deserve to die later in the movie.
In Das Boot style there is the shore leave scene in the beginning showing US crew having fun in their cleanly-pressed uniforms in a dance hall. As they arrive to capture the coveted Enigma machine from the damaged Nazi Sub, none of the nazis recognizes the US sub even when it's vastly different than any German one. The heavily armed US crew then assaults the U-Boat in one of the most ridiculous gun fights since 50's B westerns: In addition being fanatic nazis the Germans can't even hit barn door from 5 feet.
In one typical scene a german is lies on a bunk, hidden behind a curtain. His pistol is aiming directly at Matthew McConaughey (starring as US captain) when he opens the curtain. The German fires several shots at him from 2 feet but hits nothing and McConaughey kills him with a tommy gun. Then in one similiar scene a german is aiming at a small hatch where US boarding crew is coming. McConaughey jumps in and the German fires at him at about 5 feet but is instantly killed with a single burst of tommy gun.
There are more of these scenes, but maybe you got the point. Then the US sub that brought the boarding party to U-Boat takes a hit from another german sub and explodes like a refinery hit by nuke.
The skeleton crew easily learns how to "drive" the german U-Boat and knocks out the other german boat in a totally unrealistic underwater battle (they didn't have nice homing torpedoes or modern sonars in '41). Quite soon after that sole German survivor, the captain of U-571, tries to sabotage American efforts. He steals a pistol and when lone US crew member comes to investigate, the German captain shoots (and surprisingly hits!)him in the chest. But the sailor doesn't fall down, instead he stares at the captain, then his bleeding wound and makes mad dash with bare hands at the captain and knocks him on the floor...and rest of the crew restrain the nazi. At this point I was in major pains but I forced myself to watch.
At the last half of the movie US crew meet a German destroyer while surfaced and pretend to be the real crew of U-571. At the last moment they shoot the German destroyer directly into radio room to prevent it from reporting their position. They manage to dive as germans just manage to scrape the boat's paing with machine guns. They dive under the destroyer's keel and the classic depth-charging and hull-screeching-pressure scene follows. The boat naturally takes some damage and is forced to surface, but no worries. As destroyer is chasing and firing the U-boat from few hundred feet hitting nothing but tuna fish, the americans use the rear torpedoes. KABOOM! German destroyer blows like it was loaded with V-2 Rockets and sinks in seconds.
The damaged U-boat starts to fall to pieces and US crew is forced to abandon it. Happily they paddle into sunset with their small raft.
For a moment I really hoped a German sub would surface and machine-gun them to the bottom.
But the movie reaches The End and tries to give some credit to the British who in fact stole the Enigma coding machine and won the battle for Atlantic. Im not sure would they appreciate that they are even mentioned. I left the theater feeling great disbelief in future of war movies.
Colditz with Bon Jovi....
My Rating? 4/10, only because it is a about submarines!