U-571: La batalla del Atlántico

As far as thrillers go, U-571 is a well made film. Although it's historical inaccuracies are awful, it still serves as a great theater experience. It won a well deserved Oscar for it's sound, which, in the right theater, makes the film well worth the admission. Sound is the key essential to U-571.

The characters are simple, the plot is simple, and the film probably won't haunt you long after you've seen it, but that's OK. Just sit back and enjoy the claustrophobic sets, the deafening sound effects, and the non-stop action for what it's worth.

I saw this film on BBC TV tonight. Let's start by saying as a historical document it sucks - everyone knows that it was a British crew that found the naval Enigma machine and code books, fact. However, the second world war did happen and submarines sank ships. The film was quite well made and fairly well acted but the story should be taken with the proverbial pinch of salt. Robin Hood, Men in Tights was more historically accurate. There have been many submarine films including the superb German made "Das Boot" and an old British black and white film made on a shoestring budget - "Morning Departure" - based on the true story the sinking of HMS Truculent and the attempts made to rescue her trapped crew.

I saw U-571 last Friday.

I loved every second of it. Throughout the movie, I don't know who's knuckles were whiter; mine clutching the theatre seat, or the actors who grabbed whatever they could while being depth-charged.

This movie was pure non-stop action, from beginning to end. You are there, really there, experiencing the gripping fear of submarine warfare.

I believe that was the intention of the movie and if so, accomplished that superbly. I think the acting, camera work, and sound was excellent.

Now, regarding other issues.

The movie is NOT historical; it is fictional. It is based (loosely) on history (history being that there once were German and Allied submarines that fought in a war known as World War II, and that there was a German code machine the Allies called the "enigma").

Not only is it not historical regarding the event (the capturing of U-571 and the enigma code machine by Americans) but in many other areas such as what submarines of that era and their weapons could and could not do (such as dogfighting underwater with torpedo's).

Don't look for character development either. There isn't much. It's more like the first 1/2 hour of "Saving Private Ryan" (the landing on the beach episode ) throughout the length of the movie.

Thankfully, in my opinion of what a "war" movie should be, it was not muddled up with "love" scenes or anything stupid and mushy like most are. And also, thankfully, there wasn't "angel music" playing all the time. The second "trailer" was misleading in that it showed a ball-room dance, leading the viewer to believe there was some "love" interests, and played angel music, of which there was neither in the movie. It was just man-to-man combat and basic survival.

I hope everyone who sees it will enjoy it for what it is and not concentrate on, or blame it for what it isn't.

Enough analyzing -- Go see it! I suggest choosing a modern theatre with a big-screen and digital sound system.

Salut!

JG2"FireCat!

Yet again, Hollywood rewrites history to make it look like America alone won the Second World War! This really is an awful movie that spectacularly distorts the history of the Battle of the Atlantic and, as a proud Briton, I find it downright insulting to my nation and it's efforts during the Second World War. It totally ignores even the basic historical facts concerning the true story of the breaking of the Enigma code, apart from a little mention in the end credits at the point where most movie-goers have already begun to walk out of the theatre and are unlikely to ever see it. And with all of the other factual errors, distortions, and cultural stereotypes, this is about as far from being even a semi-accurate depiction of the war at sea as you will ever get.

If you want a movie that has no basis in reality and just panders to national stereotypes and American patriotic jingoism, then you'll probably enjoy this movie - Just remember that what you are watching is complete fiction and not in any way a representation of true history. However, if you want something that accurately depicts submarine warfare in the Atlantic during the Second World War, you'd be far better advised to watch Das Boot instead.

U-571 is an action film with quite a budget for the time. It is not a history war action film, although, in the end, they do a fast scroll of historical facts for some reason.

The film is not very accurate with its facts, and I'm not talking about the specifics of submarines or naval battles, uniforms, or something like this but rather general believability. Some of the things we see feel very unrealistic and more Hollywood-like.

The film has an all-star cast, but there are no good characters for the actors to work with. Most of them are very generic, while some are downright ignorant and unresponsible. They build up a lot of general patriotic stereotypes, but these just don't contribute to a good film in my opinion.

This film was clearly inspired by THE BEST submarine film ever made - Das Boot, it has some of the similar scenes, music choices, and more. What it doesn't have though are believable characters. We have just plain basic good guys and the bad guys. One side is pure evil, the other is just good in every aspect. I thought that they would do something interesting with the German captain, but they never did, he's just evil. I thought there will be some internal drama written for Matthew McConaughey, but there really isn't. His character just spills out very basic cliche inspirational speeches and that's it. Nobody on the boat acts like a real human being.

While it had some good tense action scenes... there's nothing in the film besides that. Just lots of cliches, general stereotypes, sugary patriotism, and historical revisionism.