RUN SILENT, RUN NOT SO DEEP

Rating: Null/10 (22 April 2000)

THE NUTSHELL: At the height of the WW II German U-boat campaign in the North Atlantic against allied transports, one member of those dreaded "Wolf Packs" is disabled and adrift. Military Intelligence catches on to the situation and realizes it has the opportunity to capture the key to all German communications, the cipher machine code named "Enigma." Pressed into the service of an intelligence officer and Marine Commando leader (David Keith), is the crew of an aging U.S. submarine. XO (Matthew McConaughey) and his men find themselves camouflaged as another German sub and in a race to reach the U-boat before the actual supply ship does. The name of their quarry is: U-571.
If you think you can faintly hear the sound of a military drum march while reading the above, the producers of U-571 are your type of moviemakers. Not only is the standard rousing march provided, so is almost every single element from every submarine niche movie ever made. To call them clichés is a little unfair, for as with any setting there are certain rudiments that are hard to avoid. A movie made around semi-trucks is bound to contain shots of the wheels turning, gears being jammed and the occasional hiss of air breaks. So too will your underwater warfare flick feature such stock items as the skipper at the periscope, the call of DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! and fish (torpedoes) being launched. When it comes to theses obvious expectations, U-571 delivers handsomely. Therein lies the problem.
Moviegoers who simply want a good, well told story delivered with the current level of craft regardless of unoriginality cannot ask for a better return on their two hours of time and seven bucks. Go see U-571, it doesn't disappoint. Yet, neither does it surprise. With the exception of the basic premise of the actual mission to retrieve the code machine (seen in countless other genre pictures, including one of the better Roger Moore Bond films - FOR YOUR EYES ONLY) there is not a single scenario left unused by the end of this thing. Crews being rattled by depth charges while looking fearfully up? It's here. Cat and mouse games with a destroyer dropping those depth charges? That's here. Putting debris in the water to fake the sub's "death?" Yep, it's here too. RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP, CRIMSON TIDE, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, and the uberfilm of submariners DAS BOOT have all contributed to U-571's bag of tricks.
None of this is meant to insult the audience's intelligence. In fact, there's plenty of evidence that the filmmakers actually respect it. Several characters are killed without the usual fanfare to make it clear to the audience what has happened (although the similarity between Jack Noseworthy and Jon Bon Jovi made it a little confusing who "bought it" there). The sub lingo comes as fast and furious as it must in real life when lives are at stake, made even more cloudy when the characters themselves can't read the identifications on the German boat. The positions of the various crew members have to be sussed out as they do their job instead broadcast bad-movie style, ala: "Ensign Huff here is the best rudder man in the Navy."
Not that U-571 is without it's clunkers. Harvey Keitel is the chief of the boat, a salty dog who actually says (while belting whiskey no less) "I got da sea in my blood." McConaughey has been passed over for his own command because his skipper (Bill Paxton) doesn't think he's cut out for command yet because of the XO's closeness to the crew. And in one of the biggest insults to the audience, just in case they don't get it that it's wartime and you must kill your enemy in sometimes cold-blooded ways, the Germans machine gun a life raft of survivors from ship they just sank so when the Yanks pull a Trojan horse maneuver later it won't seem less than sporting. There are a few technical gaffs the pickier viewer will pick up on: there's no light at the depth the sub is seen at and a seasoned sub pro has pointed out that you cannot start diesel engines underwater (WWII era subs cruised on the surface, submerging only to attack or evade using precious battery reserves to do so).
The most surprising thing about this lack of surprise is who is presenting it, co-writer and director Jonathan Mostow. Two years ago he reworked the well-trod thriller path of a driver against unknown assailants out in the American wasteland into the excellent, stipped-down, very underappreciated BREAKDOWN. For filmgoers sake, I hope the blame for U-571's failures can be traced to the probable culprit, Dino De Laurentis. Writer-directors who make first rate action films are few compared to those working in strictly dramatic or comedic arenas. Outside of James Cameron and possibly the Wachowski Brothers, most helmers are hired guns.
Back in the 30's and 40's, studios like RKO and Republic churned out basic genre pictures that stuck to a tried and true formula which satisfied audience expectations if only rarely giving them anything original. It was escapist fare, judged solely on meeting those expectations. That's U-571. In addition to all the usual sub aspects listed above, the period details and the subs themselves bear mentioning. Along with the various duty uniforms, there's a dance scene early featuring a room full of dress whites and women's 40's era clothes for those who love the details of nostalgia. The dockside set is toyland of jeeps, trucks and naval personnel milling about. The production definitely did no skimp here.
Then, there are the sub sets. Anyone who assumes that they simply went to some place like Chicago (home to U-505, from which an enigma machine was taken during the war) and shot the real thing can be forgiven their misinformation. Using Cinecitta's famed craftsmen, the production built their sub interior in Rome. It is a marvel of pipes, moving gears and gauges. Universal will be criminal if they do not campaign next winter for Best Design on their behalf.
The best praise, albeit somewhat faint, I can bestow on U-571 comes down to who I would recommend this to: my dad. Like most of the general public, my dad sees maybe half a dozen films a year (not counting Bond repeats) mostly on cable. He grew up during the war and was raised on those RKO and Republic features. A war movie can ONLY mean knocking the hell out of Nazis or Toho's boys. For any regular film habitué who demands a little more out of cinema, the movie is forgettable and unsurprising tale that might not exactly make your 10 or 20 best list for 2000. It won't make your worst, either. But my dad's gonna love it. RECOMMENDATION: Can see now with no rush or wait for video.