Fresh and Exciting

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

This movie uses great effects and realistic settings, but the rest is fantastic superhuman nonsense. The U-571 was never captured by Americans and was sunk with all hands off the coast of Ireland by British aircraft, so I hope nobody gets his history from this. The Germans were furthermore quite humane when treating survivors in the sea, and while they could not take them on board, they rarely shot them all or deliberately killed them. The German navy commander Karl Dönitz was not found guilty of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials. In fact, in 1942 the captain of U-156 tried to rescue survivors from a sunken British ship after radioing the allies, only to be attacked by American bombers which killed many of the survivors on the deck of the U-boat and forced it to dive, which killed the rest. The allies often killed German sailors who survived sunken U- boats or left them to die even when they could have saved them. This film is also short on realism. The German movie Das Boot was criticized by former U-boat sailors for its portrayal of depth charges being too close to the U-boat and not sinking it. Well, this movie had the depth charges a lot closer, the hull shaking like crazy, yet no rupture or major leaks occur. Depth charges don't have to hit the craft; they're designed to cause a crack or dent in the hull, and water pressure does the rest. Machine guns that fired from a German destroyer were enough to compromise the hull's integrity, but the boat still dives beyond its accepted limit after all that with no problems. The ability of a handful of men to operate a damaged foreign U-boat to achieve all these deeds and still survive to tell the tale is about as fantastic and unrealistic as you can get. It's a propaganda film with all its cheesy music, of pure good us versus pure evil them, and a pretty unconvincing one.

U-571 garnered a lot of negative publicity on first release, due to the fact that it's completely historically inaccurate – the Brits were the ones who captured the first Enigma machine, not the Yanks. Still, inaccuracies aside – and let's face it, a LOT of Hollywood films are far from the truth – it's best to remember that this is a movie, nothing more, nothing less, designed to entertain and that's it. And I'm pleased to say that it's VERY entertaining.Submarine thrillers have been fairly rare over the last couple of decades; everyone remembers DAS BOOT, the classic German miniseries, but there are no films so to speak of other than THE HUNT FOR RED October and CRIMSON TIDE. U-571 seeks to re-address that, presenting a taut thriller that mainly takes place in a single location. The good news is that Jonathan Mostow is the director, and he wrings every ounce of suspense, tension, and atmosphere from his confined setting. Mostow is that rare beast – a director who manages to turn even lacklustre scripts into entertaining movies; see TERMINATOR 3 for a case in point. His earlier BREAKDOWN, a fantastic thriller with Kurt Russell, remains a favourite and U-571 is just as entertaining as that movie.Being a Hollywood movie, there are the requisite number of clichés and outlandish situations, but the premise seems fresh and the film is bolstered by some brilliant action scenes that make great use of CGI effects for a change. The cast have no choice but to give it their all; this is an ensemble outing and there's no hiding from the camera. Harvey Keitel is fine as the elder statesman, letting his younger co-stars do the hard work; Matthew McConaughey, an actor I usually dislike, is actually very good as the wannabe-captain. Elsewhere, the well-established likes of Bill Paxton and Elias Koteas fill out character roles, and there are two unusual casting choices: a bit part for cheeky chappy Robin Askwith, best known for his performances in '70s comedies like CONFESSIONS OF A WINDOW CLEANER, and a supporting role for musician Jon Bon Jovi, who is actually pretty decent. This is a frequently edge-of-your-seat film that packs in some great twists. After the initial set-up it keeps pounding away until the ending, and I enjoyed every minute; a minor classic for sure that just looks better and better as the years pass.

I'm not going into the main stuff wrong with this movie; see the many other reviews for that. Everything they say is true. But I'm going to hit some small but outrageously idiotic things.One is the ineffectiveness of depth charges. This movie is hardly unique in this, but it is very bad. Charges are shown exploding right next to the ship's hull, without destroying it. What do depth charges have to do to sink a sub, open a hatch and climb in? One that bothered me a lot was the part where the U-571 dives and passes under the German destroyer. The sub passes under while descending from 15 to 20 meters depth, and barely clears the destroyer's keel. How much water do these idiots think a WWII destroyer draws? 15 FEET would be more like it. 15 METERS would get you under a battleship! And there is one stupid thing that is not technical, but just shows an appalling lack of any feeling for the story environment. Preparing for the dangerous mission to board the enemy sub, our hero takes off his big class ring and places it on a shelf in his cabin. Now never mind that a sub in a combat zone is no place to wear a class ring in the first place. The thing is, he's shown pausing, gazing at his reflection in a mirror after he sets the ring down. It's supposed to be a poignant moment, as he thinks of duty and honor and 'will I measure up' and stuff. But watching, all I can think is 'what kind of idiot puts a thing on the edge of a shelf on a sub and expects it to stay there?' I think all this is not just nit-picking. It and much else go to this movie utterly failing, for me, to 'create and sustain its world.' And that pervasive failure is the mark of a very bad movie.

It's understandable for film makers to use some artistic license to portray real events. To explain something to the audience in simplistic terms rather than go into long winded in depth historical analysis. To shorten something due to the practicalities of film making etc.This film goes way beyond 'artistic license' it is frankly stupid. Whats frightening is that many people will now believe they know some history based on this awful film. It is totally inaccurate, totally implausible and totally unbelievable. The biggest insult is that the 'writers' clearly think we (the audience) are all un-educated, dull witted morons. I have to say this film is so bad, that I think the term 'writer' should be replaced with 'crayon wielding clueless chimp'.