True fact: "June 4, 1944 -- Enigma machine and coding documents captured from U- 505 by U.S. Navy Task Force 22.3."

Rating: 7/10 (30 April 2011)

A) It's fiction, you twits!
B) Watch the ending of the movie before writing a review.
C) PM Neville Chamberlain.
I get worried when I see foreigners watching Hollywood movies with gun fights and car chases, cars blowing up, trains being hijacked with nuclear bombs aboard. Would you believe there are foreigners who have never been to America because they believe these movies are real?
I'm sorry to have to break the news to you: It's make believe!
Man, some of you are like the simple minded aliens in Galaxy Quest, who thought every episode of Star Trek was an historical document! I hear there are some foreigners who are actually gullible enough to believe Fargo is a true story!
Hollywood is not the Department of Historical Documentaries, and it's not the Ministry of Patriotic Propaganda, which I suppose is the way movies are actually made in some countries.
Sorry, but Americans do not go to movies like this for patriotic inspiration; they go to be entertained. And the Hollywood studios don't make them out of patriotic duty, they make them to make money, and mainly for American audiences.
I, for one, was entertained. And I think most non-xenophobic viewers would be, too.
I was skeptical at the beginning, afraid it would be another action movie with cartoonish characters and a shallow, improbable plot. But the movie did a good job of setting things up, especially with the captain explaining to his No. 1 why he was not ready for command, and the duties command entailed.
The acting, all around was very good, the directing was fine, the script was well above average in creating and holding tension over a sustained period. My heart was beating hard and fast through much of the movie, so it worked.
Yes, I have seen the full version of Das Boot, along with the entire commentary track, which is one of the finest movies ever made. It was a composite of actual historical events. The fictional Hunt for Red October was based loosely on rumors of some possible secret events described in the non-fiction history, Blind Man's Bluff.
U-571 makes no claims to being based on any historical events. IT IS FICTION! To enjoy most Hollywood movies you must be willing to suspend disbelief. If you can't, go watch a National Geographic or BBC documentary (I have seen some BBC documentaries that had less historical accuracy than this movie, namely the Rome series).
(Spoiler:)
That said, at the end of the movie, the producers pay tribute to those historical events some posters claim the movie maligns:
-- "This movie is dedicated to the bravery of Allied sailors and officers who risked their lives capturing Enigma materials from U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic:
-- May 9, 1941 -- Enigma machine and coding documents captured by from U-110 by HMS Bulldog and HMS Aubretia of the Third Escort Group, Royal Navy.
-- October 30, 1942 -- Short weather cipher captured from U-559 by HMS Petard of the Royal Navy
-- June 4, 1944 -- Enigma machine and coding documents captured from U- 505 by U.S. Navy Task Force 22.3."
It's generally a good idea to actually watch the entire movie before writing a review.
And when watching a movie like this with an historical setting, it's a good idea to go online and read about the actual history of the period. If a movie like this can inspire viewers to learn more about history, that's a good thing. But a fictional movie can sometimes breathe life into dry historical accounts, which I think U-571 does, and better than many movies made during World War II, which were, indeed, made in part to provide patriotic inspiration.
I hope viewers will follow up by watching the episode about submarine warfare in the BBC's excellent 1973 documentary series, "The World at War." It is a good place to start, but I feel it doesn't fully explain why the German U-boats ultimately proved so vulnerable.
Some other notes. I talked to a submariner, and he said that every member of the crew was cross trained on every other member's duty stations, even the cook. This is hinted at in U-571.
Yes, the Allies had an Enigma machine from the beginning of the war. It was smuggled out, piece by piece by Polish cryptographers. The Allies still needed the daily code settings, and the new four-rotor version introduced in 1942 for U-boat traffic. To decipher daily settings, they used an early digital computer at Bletchley Park called Colossus, part of the Ultra project, supervised by Alan Turing. (The ABC computer was the first fully functional digital computer.)
Ultra was one of the technological devices that helped the Allies win the war, along with RADAR and the analog computer Norden bomb sight, which was kept secret long after the war, and so is little mentioned in films.
While the Germans had Enigma machines, the Americans invented SIGSALY, encrypted PCM AD and DA spread spectrum companding voice transceivers. (You may have something similar in your pocket.) The Germans and Japanese hadn't a clue how to decipher the transmissions. It was called the Green Hornet because it sounding like buzzing to an undecoded listener. Bet you didn't know that (it was secret).
I think all American fiction movies and TV shows should be banned from export because foreigners, especially children, often think they are real. This won't happen because so many foreigners insist on watching American shows, even when they say they are junk.
Oh, and thank you, Britain, for for sending us millions of troops, planes, weapons and food to save America from being bombed and invaded by Nazi Germany. And thank you, Britain, for making "Mrs. Minniver" to build American morale.