Real Boats but not Real Navy

Rating: Null/10 (21 April 2000)

I sometimes am lucky in matching my film experience to the audience I share it with, and this was such a case. I live near Norfolk, the world's largest collection of Navy people, and the heaviest concentration of US WWII submariners.
I saw this on opening day, the heavy show (7:30) with the audience packed with young and old Navy. And I have to say, the film didn't work. The models were good, the explosions and all the underwater work nicely done. The boat, at least the US boat, was accurate, and the local paper reports that folks here helped with the specifications.
But these actors didn't seem like sailors, never remotely, and the mismatch was pretty obvious in that audience. Maybe Keitel could pull off a chief with better direction, but not here. And McConaughey and Bon Jovi could never reach believability. Submariners are clubby, superstitious and smelly. Submarines, especially the old boats, are confining. Das Boot gave us a feel for the closeness and the terror, and the high mental level of underwater warfare. This movie misses. It takes more than shaking the camera.
I have some familiarity with the crypto world. That dimension is spooky and could have been woven into the story to better effect. Instead we have a simple grab for an object. You may want to see this for the underwater effects, but otherwise, it is a miss.