U-571 is a good, old-fashioned throwback to the WWII “Men on a Mission” movies that used to play non-stop on TBS back in the day. It was also riding the coattails of a couple of then-current trends. It’s a submarine movie like Crimson Tide, a boat-sinking movie starring Bill Paxton like Titanic, and the stuff with the seasoned veteran of the team being killed off halfway through is a lot like Executive Decision.
During WWII, the Americans intercept a transmission that a German U-Boat is left off the coast in less than ship shape condition. Paxton leads a team of men to intercept the ship posing as German mechanics so they can steal an Enigma coding device onboard the vessel which may be the key to turning the tide of the war. Things do not go as planned and the men find themselves stranded aboard an enemy vessel fighting for their lives.
The cast is solid, through and through. We have Matthew McConaughey as the wet-behind-the-ears officer who isn’t ready to lead his men, Paxton as his hardass mentor, and Harvey Keitel as his trusty right-hand man. As good as McConaughey and Paxton are, it’s Keitel who gets the best scene where he gives McConaughey a much-needed pep talk. Heck, even Jon Bon Jovi is pretty good in this.
The action and suspense is handled with efficiency by journeyman director Jonathan Mostow. It’s not as good as his other films like Breakdown and Terminator 3, but it's an absorbing and entertaining war thriller all the same. While it never quite kicks into overdrive, it has a number of effective sequences. There are also more submarine movie cliches than you can shake a stick at, so fans of WWII sub action will be sure to enjoy it.
The movie got a lot of flack at the time of release because it was in fact the English who recovered the Enigma coding device and not us Americans. If you are a stickler for history, you might find all this hard to swallow. If, however, you just want a gripping, entertaining war flick with a reliable cast, U-571 will fit the bill.
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