Rock the boat

Rating: 7/10 (29 April 2000)

As I sat and waited for this movie to begin, I had to sit through a number of really bad trailers for really bad movies-except one: Director Wolfgang Petersen ("In The Line of Fire," "Air Force One") has a new film coming out June 30th called "The Perfect Storm." Petersen's come a long way, but his masterpiece is still "Das Boot," the epic German World War II submarine film that really set the standard for all underwater thrillers that followed.
As if the trailer weren't reminder enough of Boot's influence on it, "U-571" begins with none other than the crew of a German U-boat struggling against depth charges dropped by a British destroyer. Writer/director Jon Mostow is tipping his hat to Petersen here, given the way we're allowed to get to know these characters a little bit. These are not the inhuman, evil, cold-blooded Nazis depicted in American cinema, but simply a crew of men under orders, doing their duty, trying to survive. Of course, this is an American film and we're soon informed who we're supposed to be rooting for.

Mostow wasn't trying to make a better film than its predecessors, just a Bigger, Faster, and Louder one. He knows his limits: He doesn't have Denzel or Hackman. Or Connery. Or Baldwin. "U-571" bravely charts its own course, happy to be something that neither "Boot," nor "Hunt For Red October," nor "Crimson Tide" were: an all-out action flick. Mostow's crew consists of names like McConaughey, Keitel, Paxton, Bon Jovi, Weber. None of these guys (well, except maybe Keitel) is going to demand the big speech, the scenery-chewing dialogue. Their job is to say the lines they're given and look mean or intense or afraid-whatever the scene calls for. The film's one developed character, Matthew McConaughey's Lieutenant Andrew Tyler, provides enough to keep the boat, and the film, afloat.
I'm not going to get into the details of the plot because it's really no better or worse than the plot of the other underwater thrill rides you've seen. I will say that it's set near the end of World War II, at which time Allied forces were trying to capture coding devices that made German naval communications undecipherable. Mostow's story has a few unexpected twists, with a script that often leads you astray of what will actually happen. It also seems designed, often at the expense of historical accuracy, to deliver as many opportunities for things to blow up as possible. In fact, it's been a while since I've seen or heard things blow up quite as well as they did in this film.
Do try to see "U-571" in a well-equipped theater, but make sure you take in its superior elder statesmen at some point.
Grade: B-