| Overall Grade: |
B |
|
| Story: |
N/A |
|
|
| Acting: |
N/A |
|
|
| Direction: |
N/A |
|
|
| Visuals: |
N/A |
|
|
Damn the torpedoes
by CarlosC (movies profile)
Jul 7, 2007
6
of
8 people found this review helpful
Matthew McConaughey is the junior submarine officer who gets to show his mettle when his captain (Bill Paxton) is killed at sea in this gimmicky -- but, solid -- under-the-waters hit. As the movie opens, sometime in the 1940s, McConaughey has been passed over for promotion. But, he doesn't get to sulk over not getting to be a sub hero for long, because early in the establishing action, the crew of the sub he is on gets picked for a special spy assignment -- an early fake-out, of course.
It is clear to us that this mission, undertaken in the first act, will not succeed -- in order to set us up for the main action. U-571 is not shy about sailing above the waves when it comes to plot machinations: nothing covert or subtle here, but it works as a well-oiled formula film that knows where it's going and the quickest, plot-the-dots way to get there. McConaughey and company are told that their mission for the American military is to pose as a Nazi rescue submarine and rendezvous with a broken German sub drifting in the water. The goal of the intercept is to confiscate an "Enigma machine" -- a typewriter-looking device used by the Nazis to encode military transmissions. The historical touch is nice, but most Nazi Enigma machines were captured by the British. Who gets their history from Hollywood, anyway? When the intercept does not go as planned, McConaughey's crew ends up in the limp boat, and their ability (or inability) to avoid depth charges, sink a German gunboat, and escape to safety, constitute the balance of the plot.
Harvey Keitel plays McConaughey's mentor, a senior military officer with no apparent ambitions of his own, but with plenty of insights, who takes the earnest but headstrong McConaughey under his wing. In one scene, McConaughey off-handedly admits to his young crewmembers that he doesn't know the way out of their predicament. In a later scene, Keitel berates the acting commander for his admission, telling him that loose lips sink ships: "The commander always knows -- even when he doesn't know." The acceptance by the young crew members of their inexperienced leader is the main character-driven conflict of the film. In one tense sequence, McConaughey orders his novice officers to act contrary to their instincts in responding to a perceived air attack by an enemy raider. The tension of whether or not they will obey him provides the rough sketch of the character drama.
But, don't come looking for character drama, here. U-571 is a full-speed-ahead and damn-the-torpedoes type of action movie. And, while on the subject, there is only one torpedo aboard with which the good guys posing as bad guys must defend themselves. Additionally, the engine is broken, and all the control panels are inscribed in German, which the crack American infiltrators…do not speak. It's like one of the old episodes of "Star Trek," with Scotty protesting, "I can't change the laws of physics, Cap'n." Here, water leaks are constantly springing up, at one point the ship is sinking more than ten times deeper than its normal cruising depth, and it looks as if there is no hope. At some level, U-571 is like an homage to other films in the genre (the cynical term is copy-cat) -- what with untrustworthy POWs running amock and explosive fuses burning while the crew scrambles -- U-571 is as predictable (and as much fun) as a firecracker.
(Carlos Colorado) |
My Public Profile 
