Das Boot is the Holy Grail of submarine movies.  It’s so good that you have to wonder why anyone would bother making a film about subs after Boot was released in 1982.  You know, kind of like how Ben-Hur ruined the whole “chariot race” genre for everyone else.  Granted, you’d be better off spending your $20 for tickets and popcorn on the the director’s cut of Boot on DVD instead, but U-571 is still damn entertaining.  

Sure, it’s as close to Boot as Mulholland Falls is to L.A. Confidential, but U-571 is an edge-of-your-seat good time.  And who woulda thunk it, coming from this bunch of “auteurs”?  Director Jonathan Mostow’s only previous mainstream directorial credit was 1997’s reprehensible Breakdown. Mostow penned the script with Breakdown cronie Sam Montgomery and some other guy named David Ayer, a former Navy sonarman who had never written a feature film.  The talent in front of the camera isn’t particularly awe-inspiring, either.  Matthew McConaughey?  Bill Paxton?  Not much brain activity there.  Harvey Keitel?  I only recently regained my sight after seeing him in a dress and lipstick in Holy Smoke.  Jon Bon Jovi?  ‘Nuff said.

U-571’s story isn’t that fantastic, but it does offer the best cinematic macguffin since “the Process” from David Mamet’s The Spanish Prisoner.  The film is set in the Atlantic Ocean during the spring of 1942, where German U-boats have their way with Allied ships while slowly approaching the east coast of the United States.  The German’s sea supremacy is unmatched, partly due to the fact that the Allied Forces are unable to decipher the transmissions that they intercept from their adversaries.  If the Allies could only get their hands on Germany’s “Enigma” machine, they could crack the code and possibly turn the tide of war to their favor.

And that’s just what U-571 is about.  The crew of a rickety, antiquated Word War I submarine are ordered to disguise themselves as German soldiers and take over a disabled sub stranded in the middle of the Atlantic and capture the mysterious “Enigma” device.  The American sub, skippered by Captain Dahlgren (Paxton, Mighty Joe Young), is even doctored to look like a German U-boat, and a German-speaking officer (Jake Weber, In Too Deep) and combat Marine (David Keith, A Family Thing) are included in the mission.

Of course, the mission doesn’t go exactly as planned, otherwise there would be no movie.  The Americans end up aboard the German vessel, but the ship is beyond repair.  To make matters worse, they can’t read the controls, they only have one torpedo remaining, and they insist on keeping the German Captain (Thomas Kretschmann) aboard the ship as a prisoner.  Gee, I wonder if he’s going to break free at a really dramatic moment in the film?

There are more predictable things in the film, mostly revolving around McConaughey’s (edTV) Lieutenant Andrew Tyler.  As the film opens, we learn that he was passed over for promotion because Captain Dahlgren says he doesn’t possess the ability to sacrifice his own men if the situation deems it necessary.  Gee, I wonder if Tyler will end up in charge of the mission and have to sacrifice his own men?

Yet despite the predictability, lack of capable stars and weak script, U-571 still succeeds.  The sound is remarkable, especially during scenes where the sub is being pummeled by depth charges.  In fact, these scenes are so well done that they jammed three of them into the film (the third time was a little much).  The film, while not based on a true story, is dedicated to the brave men that captured the “Enigma” machine, which was apparently an actual device that truly did shift the balance of power in the Atlantic over to the Allies.

2:00 - for war violence and adult language