Worthless bilge

Rating: 5/10 (9 December 2001)

An embarrassingly aporetic WW2 popcorn flick which thumbs its nose at the honorable realism of Saving Private Ryan, mocks the incredibly tense and powerful Das Boot, arrogantly ignores the history behind the capture of the first enigma machine, and gives Harvey Keitel an incredibly beef-headed role in which to showcase his monumental lack of acting ability. ("It's all in German!", he exclaims as though the brass didn't brief him that Germans didn't mark all their U-Boat dials in good ole American). When will Hollywood quit making this kind of tripe. Not any time soon apparently seeing Behind Enemy Lines is now playing. Revisionist history in the extreme, from the capture of the enigma machine right down to the black cook who doesn't seem to confront 40's bigotry whatsoever as he goes about handling every onboard task imaginable. Not likely I'm sad to say. The special effects are typically exaggerated and the bubble-gum action repetitious and lacking any kind of tension. Pacing and realistic suspense is what made Das Boot the great film it is. It was also about the real fear men face when they're trapped in a fragile sub and at the mercy of enemy depth charges and air attacks. U-571 is an atypically brainless Hollywood imitation short on realism and long on noise and phony heroics.
Written and directed by a hack and made for an exceedingly stupid action market. I'm surprised they didn't hire Arnold to play McConaughey's role. Never let believability get in the way of a good action movie after all.