U-571
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: This film is essence of submarine war
film. In fact, the one serious problem is that it
seems inspired so much more by submarine movies
than anybody's real wartime experiences. This
solid action adventure really has too many scenes
familiar from other films, particularly the great
DAS BOOT. But still how can you go too far wrong
with action scenes set on accurate renditions of
American submarines and German U-boats? Rating: 7
(0 to 10), low +2 (-4 to +4)
Well, let's get this out of the way immediately. It did not really happen this way. If you read the statement at the end of the film, even the film tells you that it did not happen this way. The first Enigma machine was captured months earlier than this film's Spring 1942 setting. It was the British H.M.S. Bulldog whose 1941 mission in the North Atlantic captured the first Enigma. Americans did capture a U-boat with an Enigma machine, but not until 1944--much later in the war. In fact, even that was a total foul-up. If the Germans learned that the Americans had captured an Enigma they would have changed their codes and ruined the precious work done by the British cryptographers.
It was the British who cracked the German military code Enigma in World War II (building on pervious work by Polish mathematicians earlier in the war). That task required a chain of extraordinary feats, not the least of which was capturing one of the machines. When Michael Caton-Jones wanted to make an exciting film about flying bombing runs over Germany he fibbed and made it the last flight of the Memphis Belle in the film MEMPHIS BELLE. The real last flight was not so dramatic. It is a sort of dramatic license. Similarly when Jonathan Mostow wanted to make a film about submarine warfare in World War II, he invented a fictional American mission to capture an Enigma box in 1942. And for those who think that it is so terrible for Americans to claim what was really a British accomplishment, I suggest they look up David Lean's 1952 film THE SOUND BARRIER. So now we are even with the British.
It is spring, maybe four months after Pearl Harbor, and the crew of an American submarine, the S-33, is called back early from leave for a special mission that will not wait. Commanding the submarine through this world of rain, wind, steel, fire, and water, a world of heavy machinery, darkness, and loud explosions, is Captain Dahlgren (played by Bill Paxton) and his second in command, just passed over for promotion to his own command, is Lt. Andrew Tyler (Matthew McConaughey). Tensions arise as Tyler knows that the reason he was not promoted is that Dahlgren would not recommend him for command. But Tyler is going to get his taste of command this mission.
The S-33 has been modified to look like a German U-boat in a deception intended to help the crew capture the disabled U-571. This U-boat has an Enigma code machine. The plan is to capture the machine and scuttle the U-boat so the Germans assume that the Enigma machine is lost. But as the title suggests, the U-boat will play a more important role in the story than that. Once the American crew finds the U-571 the pace of this film is non-stop up to the closing credits.
The real problem with U-571 is the amount that has been recycled from previous films. The very first shot is just an eye staring. In a second or two we realize that it is an eye staring into a submarine periscope. It is very similar to the opening scene in THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING. In the next seconds the U-boat torpedoes a ship and then looks around to see a destroyer headed straight at the periscope. Seen almost from the level of the surface of the water it is a sobering sight. It certainly was in the film DAS BOOT. The filmmakers have used very little imagination to show us situations we have not seen before. Perhaps DAS BOOT used up all the good anxiety scenes that one can have with a U-boat. But all the classic submarine film scare sequences are somewhere here. The submarine is depth charged as the crew sits and listens waiting for the concussion that will spell their death. There is the sequence with a submarine sinking too deep. The water squirts in as if from a fire hose and gauges crack. A bolt flies like a bullet. (That is why submarine hulls are welded, not bolted. That would not happen in real life.)
Jonathan Mostow, who is best known for having written and directed the very different film BREAKDOWN, repeats those functions in this film. The script calls for Paxton to be mature and McConaughey to be a little less self-possessed. They do that reasonably well, but neither gives a memorable performance. McConaughey looks like he is under pressure and sweats well, but does not make the audience identify with him. Harvey Keitel is a good actor who almost always plays someone unsavory and somebody who lives outside of society. It is something of a departure seeing him playing a good decent career navy man with nothing but decent intentions. His few major scenes are really the acting that I will remember. Jon Bon Jovi is hardly noticeable in the film and that is probably just fine. Richard Marvin's score sounds brassy and martial, but unlike the characters, the score plays it safe and takes no chances. Mostow, however, does take some chances and the biggest is making this film that will obviously invite comparison to the modern classic submarine film DAS BOOT. He loses but, it is a competition he could probably never have hoped to win.
Perhaps we should consider U-571 to be just a fanciful thriller set in World War II in the style of Alastair MacLean. It is a "could have happened but didn't" sort of action tale like THE GUNS OF NAVARONE. But for the familiarity of the situations I would have rated it fairly well. I give it 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
[In November 1999 PBS ran a very good documentary, "Decoding Nazi Secrets" on what all was involved in breaking the code. Details are available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/decoding.] By the way, capturing a U-boat is one thing, figuring out how to run it in a matter of minutes is something very different. It should have taken days. That is one more place where this film takes liberties with the truth.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 2000 Mark R. Leeper
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