 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
Crimson Tide, The Hunt for Red October, and Das Boot. And now the list grows longer of submarine films with this Jonathan Mostow written and directed film set during World War II, or as Archie Bunker would say, the big one. U-571 stars Matthew McConaughey from Edtv (haven't seen too much of him lately, remember when he was a rising star?) as Lt. Andrew Tyler, the first mate on an old US sub that is retro-fitted to look like a German submarine for a special operation. That operation is to overrun a crippled German sub and capture their Enigma machine (the German's encoding machine that works a lot better than the decoder rings you get in cereal boxes). The captain of the US sub is Capt. Dahlgren (Bill Paxton, Titanic), who withheld a letter of recommendation from the lieutenant that prevented Tyler from getting his own sub. This creates a bit of tension, but is soon alleviated when the US sub is sunk by a second German sub, and the captain goes down with his ship. So now the US crew of the lieutenant, the chief mate (Harvey Keitel, From Dusk Till Dawn), a couple of non-sailor special ops guys, and a small crew must try and sail a crippled German sub to England through hostile waters. Plus they also must battle the interfering German captain (Thomas Kretschmann) that they captured. Will they survive and deliver the priceless decoding machine to the hands of the allies, or will they perish at the hands of the Third Reich, dum dum dummm? The rest of the cast includes, but is not limited to, Jake Weber (Lt. Hirsch), Erik Palladino, Matthew Settle, Dave Power (tank), and Jack Noseworthy as the radioman Wentz. First I must say that they must of used really powerful torpedoes in the film because it apparently only takes one to pretty much instantly destroy another vessel no matter what size it may have been. Second, if I recall correctly, the real Enigma machines had one more wheel than the prop the filmmakers used. And finally, what was singer Jon Bon Jovi, as Lt. Emmett, doing in a movie? The second two of the above were only minor things, but the first I found very annoying. Apparently in Hollywood it takes 500 bullets to kill someone, but just one bomb/torpedo/grenade/missile to completely destroy a large target (I would venture a guess that some film has probably had a grenade sink a battleship). Anyway, now that I am done with my little rant, for the most part I enjoyed U-571 and the action. Not the best acting I've ever seen, but the star of the movie is the submarine, since it is what builds the tension and suspense (something about possibly being trapped on the bottom of the ocean). In the end I give the film six couches on the scale of ten. So not your best sub flick, but much more action packed than the Yellow or Pink Submarine. Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:49:48 AM |
