Direct Hit!

Rating: 8/10 (18 July 2005)

World War II movies have pretty much become its own genre of film. With everything from beach landings, air battles, and naval skirmishes. Now we get a great look beneath the waves on board a submarine to see what happens when a top secret operation goes horribly wrong.
U-571 is the true story of a crew of sailors who are assigned a secret mission: to find and obtain the secret German coding machine known only as the enigma. Lt. Cmdr. Mike Dahlgren (Bill Paxton) leads his crew with the executive officer Lt. Andrew Tyler (Matthew McConaughey) and CPO Henry Klough (Harvey Kitel). Along for the ride are Lt. Hirsch (Jake Weber) and Maj. Matthew Coonan (David Keith) of the USMC. Along with the crew, they venture out into the Atlantic, disguised as a German U-boat (subamarine). When they surprise a vessel carrying the enigma, there celebration is short lived, those who stayed behind on the boat are blown away by a another German U-boat. Those that were on the boarding party are forced to go into the actual German U-boat they were attacking and use it against the aggressor. With the exception of one German prisoner, they are on there own now and must find a way to get back home or to an ally port. The only problem is they are in enemy infested waters.
What this group must do is follow their new commander in Lt. Tyler and try and stay alive through depth charge attacks and other German encounters. Luckily some of the crew speak German so they get by. Through the madness that was World War II, this boat will become a part of history with the recovery of the enigma machine. If the German don't know that they have it, the US and other allies can intercept other German U-boat's signals and search and destroy. If the German's suspect something, they might change the code and make the operation entirely useless. Lt. Tyler has some big decisions coming up ahead.
The growth of the crew is tremendous and shows a real change in the relationship between officers and their fellow sailors. When these men are faced with a daunting task, they must come together to solve it. McConaughey is marvelous as the Lt. thrown into the captains role. With his student/teacher relationship with Kitel, he learns how to think and lead and to have an solution for every problem that arises.
The movie really does a good job of illustrating the strength of a crew in war fare. Submarine movies are dicey to make. It's a confined space and it can sometimes get repetitive. With a new problem arising every other minute, U-571 will keep you on the edge of your seat. It almost makes you feel like you're in the boat with them. U-571 will cruise right into your movie collection.