Ripping good old fashioned WWII action/adventure submarine tale

Rating: 7/10 (17 September 2018)

Exciting and suspenseful WWII adventure tale is more "Where Eagles Dare" or "The Dirty Dozen" than "Saving Private Ryan" or "Dunkirk." Those are all great WWI films, but the former are lighter depictions of war and primarily use this period of history as a backdrop for a ripping good adventure tale than any sort of historical insight. In "U-571," a small group of US navy seamen set out on a secret mission to steal an Enigma machine to help crack German U-boat coded messages. To get the machine, they plan to pose as German mechanics and meet up with a Nazi sub in the middle of the Atlantic and to then hijack the sub like it's the opening of Steven Seagal's "Under Siege." Their plan succeeds, except that (SPOILER ALERT!) their own sub gets blown up and they find themselves marooned on a German sub with a skeleton crew. To make things worse, mission commander Bill Paxton is killed and young officer Matthew McConaughey now finds himself in charge and struggling with his new leadership position. When this film first came out, it was at the same time I was getting my school administrator license, so I found the film's themes around leadership and qualities of a good leader interesting. I particularly liked Harvey Keitel's lower-ranking Chief Petty Officer and how he coaches McConaughey on how to be a leader, telling him what the men he's leading need and helping him to step up into that role. The cast also includes Jon Bon Jovi, David Keith, and Jake Weber. "U-571" was directed and co-written by Jonathan Mostow, an underrated action director who made the excellent Kurt Russell thriller "Breakdown" and the under appreciated third Terminator film. All of his film have echos of classic Hollywood adventure and action films in a way that's a welcome contrast to the a majority of the over-directed Hollywood action films nowadays. Mostow's action feels more Robert Aldrich or Walter Hill than say Michael Bay or Paul W.S. Anderson, which is something I wish we had often in action films. I'll take 70s and 80s muscular action films over bombastic 3-D, IMAX, CGI blockbusters that predominate today's multiplexes anytime. Overall, "U-571" may not be all that historically accurate or be some magnum opus about men-at-war, but it is a ripping good adventure story. FUN FACT! The allied forces did steal an Enigma in real-life, except it was the British and not the US to led the daring mission.