Not as good as I hoped it would be

Rating: Null/10 (28 June 2000)

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs
It seems the war genre,despite providing some of the better films of cinematic history,has become one of the quickest to become cliched.It seems the major problem that deterred the enjoyment of U-571 was was how disappointingly ordinary some of the charecters in it were.They all seemed to be stereotyped relics from other war movies,which,given the talent at hand here,I found to be rather unacceptable.
Although in fairness,I don't think this film cared much for it's second world war setting,it just seemed to be set against the backdrop of this,and used it as an excuse to create a not awfully thrilling action film.
None of the performers seemed to be dishing out the Saving-Private-Ryan esque oscar hammieness such a film would have definetly required.On the thriller front,I've never really found a team of men racing around an underwater boat,shouting a load of mathematical terminology ,e.g.,in this case metres,yards and soforth very thrilling,yet this film seems to rally around this rather than explore the interesting concept behind the story (which was quite impressively handled)as much as it could have.None of the performances,ranging from Matthew McHoneghey to Bill Paxton to Harvey Keitel ,were genuinely emoting ,because,perhaps thanks largely to the script,they were either too in-your-face ,or too cliched.It's a shame because I was really hoping to enjoy this movie.**