Director Jonathan Mostow shrugs off the contrast between his film says and what really happened. He retorts that U-571 is only a war drama, a thriller in the tradition of Von Ryan's Express and The Guns of Navarone . But there he runs into a contrast between his film and one that already sailed similar waters, Wolfgang Peterson's acclaimed German production about life aboard a war-time submarine, Das Boot . In a tense scene, cold Atlantic water rushes in when the bolts holding the boat together begin to pop like bottle corks. The crew members sleep stacked on triple-level bunks and knock elbows constantly when awake.
Water pours down the periscope column whenever the sub dives.
Mostow tells his story with the taut visual economy of the great war thrillers. Saturnine Matthew McConaughey, the executive officer, is morose about being passed over for command on the negative recommendation of his skipper. He has the entire movie to get over it and rise to the demands of the mission. Naturally, it isn't easy hijacking a German U-boat and escaping with its Enigma machine. Some Nazis will do anything to prevent you from going home again.