The plot is formulaic, but it's a good formula.

Rating: 7/10 (29 April 2000)

If nothing else, this movie convinced me that I will never serve in a submarine should I ever find myself in the Navy. A young, untested, submarine crew is handed its first mission: go out and capture a German submarine in order to obtain a working Enigma code machine. So off they set in the World-War-I-era submarine with a single Germany-speaking crewman on board (surely the Navy wasn't that hard up for German speakers in 1942...). They reach the German sub, and start the voyage home. Although this is not as claustrophobia-inducing as Das Boot, it was enough to make glad to be in a large theater -- when I could remember that's where I was. U-571 will not be remembered as a great war movie in the vein of Patton or Saving Private Ryan, but it is content a good story well told. The plot is formulaic -- it's not too hard to guess which of the cast will survive through to the end, and which will not -- but it's a good formula. Worth seeing on the big screen if you're going to see it.