It Could Have Been So Much More

Rating: 6/10 (25 April 2000)

Here in Toronto, U-571 has been compared to "Das Boot", Wolfgang Peterson's pacifist take on WW2 submarine warfare. There is no comparison, despite the presence of the latter film's art director. This is a made for North America Action/Adventure with very little originality. Too bad, because I was really looking forward to this film.
Detractors up here have also complained that Holywood has co-opted a partially Canadian story- the capture of a German Enigma coding machine. Heaven forbid that the US ever acknowledges that Canada has a contribution to world history! But I digress...
Editing problems also spoil the film: the marine major, Jon Bon Jovi's character, and all the captured German submariners disappear without any narrative acknowledgement within the film. We do know courtesy of Mr. Bon Jovi that his character's demise was edited out to preserve the PG-13 rating in US theatres. Presumably that is what happened to the rest as well. All in the name of cranking up the action quotient.
"Das Boot" spends considerable time dealving into the characters on the U-Boat. U-571 creates one superficial character arc for Matthew McConnahy, then devotes the rest of the film to one submarine cliche after another. I took the liberty of watching Tony Scott's "Crimson Tide" a few days ago: it too trots out the cliches, but because the film also layers character conflict and some social commentary, it actually succeeds.

Run superficial, run shallow, indeed!