Nothing new, but still good

Rating: 8/10 (25 April 2000)

Three years ago, Jonathan Mostow made a neat little thriller called BREAKDOWN, and while there was nothing in it we hadn't seen before, it was still good. Now he turns the same trick with this movie. True, it's not a classic like DAS BOOT was, but if we said that about every movie("well, it's no..."), we'd have no movies. I was caught up with most of it, and I enjoyed it. Also, I liked Matthew McConaughey, who proved once again he's a better actor than given credit for, even when he's not using his trademark grin and charm. Except for Harvey Keitel and Jack Noseworthy(who was also in BREAKDOWN), the rest of the cast wasn't distinctive, but they were good.
Now to answer some of the criticism of this movie I've read: (1) It's not just that this is a fictional story and not fact, it's that the Enigma is a McGuffin; just something to get the plot rolling. The real story is the crew trying to survive on the enemy submarine and McConaughey's character learning if he has what it takes to be a captain. If we found out the characters were also supposed to be able to use the Enigma as well, that would have been a problem, but all they're doing is taking it. (2) If I remember correctly, and it could be I'm not, the German captain who orders his gunman to shoot the survivors on lifeboats says those are his orders from "the Fuehrer." Of course, that's no excuse(given that following orders was the defense for My Lai), but we weren't meant to think, "Oh, these German bad guys" because of this scene, especially since they didn't look particularly happy about it.
On the other hand, I do agree one torpedo blowing up a destroyer was a little ludicrous. But it does seem to me a lot of comments which nit-pick films like this are by people who go in not caring if the movie works as a whole, but who have to be satisfied about every little detail in the movie, and go through it as if they were studying something under a microscope. People like that, in my humble opinion, need to get a life.