U-571 Written by
Directed by Jonathan Mostow
Rating: 1 out of 6
This should have been a telemovie. Apart from the submarine itself, the sets are terrible and look like clean cardboard under bright lighting. There is enough "Americans are great" ego and rhetoric through the movie to make it uncomfortable to watch. The camera angles do not give the feeling of being inside a submarine. The script is bad and the characters do not develop. There are way too many bad scenes, and they all play like awfully done, plagiarised copies of the brilliant "Das Boot".
On the up side, there are some moments which stand out as good scenes, such as the dying scene involving the captured prisoner (although its tainted with Hollywood surprise syndrome), and the scene involving saving people near drowning after they believed they were certain to die. Some plot situations are interesting, but they give no more satisfaction than a good hot dog.
The movie is dedicated to the Americans who managed to steal Enigma code machines and documentation from the German forces.
If you want to see out of context unimaginative and badly executed submarine situations, then this is the movie for you. There's the over-done depth charge scene, the how low can you go scene, the having trouble eating soup on a rocking sub scene, the Hollywood gunfight scene, and huge amounts of ego splattered all through this movie, all done laughably badly.
Things to look out for: Depth charge explosions on the surface, and "White for green."
The low point: The movie sets and their clean cardboard look. |
