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Overall Rating
 Awesome: 10.34%
Worth A Look: 43.68%
Average: 8.05%
Pretty Bad: 12.64%
Total Crap: 25.29%
14 reviews, 90 user ratings
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| U-571 |
by MP Bartley
"History 101 for inbred, red-neck, trailer trash."
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I've a great idea for a movie. It's about a guy (we'll get Hugh Grant!) from London who joins the British Space Agency and becomes the first man on the moon to worldwide acclaim in 1960. No? How about a scathing biopic of George Washington casting him as a pederast? No? Ok...how's about the War of Independence, but you'll love this...BRITAIN WIN! No? Well why not, they'd fit right in with the history lesson that's 'U-571'.When 'Pearl Harbor' was released apart the general critical lashing there was scathing criticism that the sailors who had died there had simply been transformed into CGI money shots to be flung across the screen and make the inbred among the audience go "Cool!". 'U-571' plays to that same crowd and treats the dead in that same 'respectful' manner.
So in the parallel world that is 'U-571' in 1940 a bunch of American sailors led by Matthew McConaughey and Harvey Keitel capture a German sub and the Enigma coding device on board.
This device was crucial to the Allies war effort and was instrumental in the eventual downfall of the Nazi. Well they got that bit true. The rest however is vomit-inducing horse shit.
The Americans didn't capture the Enigma device, the British navy did. It was the British who pulled off such a daring capture. It was British women and children who were told that their husbands and fathers wouldn't be coming home because they lost their lives capturing this sub. And the film 'U-571' pisses all over their graves.
The Americans hadn't even entered the war at this stage, to make it even more inexcusable. Pearl Harbor was 3 months away. Did the Americans capture an Enigma device? Yes they did...in 1944, three years later. But nevermind historical truth and the memories and familys of dead sailors and the survivors of the mission we've got popcorn to sell! Why exactly has this greatest historical inaccuracy ever been committed? Firstly, the director Jonathan Mostow is a moron with no tact, guilt or sense of shame. Luckily for him that no-one takes him seriously and that the families of the dead conducted themselves in much more class than he ever did.
Secondly, the majority of the popcorn guzzling, cola-drinkin' American audience are probably idiots who think Dubious Dubya is a 'stand-up regular kinda guy. It's these type of people that give America a bad name, as they just can't stand to see another country or army take the rightful credit for their actions in World War 2. Hey America won the war by itself didn't you know? Nevermind a bothersome thing like 'truth,' if America didn't win it...it didn't happen. And I've heard rumour that Jesus Christ was a Texan and that Abraham Lincoln invented water.
Most fans of 'U-571' will at this stage be thinking, "it's only a movie" and I'm halfway inclined to agree wth them. 'Braveheart' twisted the facts and history just as much for it's own end, but there's a crucial difference: a) 'Braveheart' never took credit for something heroic AWAY from somebody and b) 'Braveheart' was done with style and panache. This is something you can't level at 'U-571'. Mostow's direction is as sterile and cliched as his history is false. This is no 'Das Boot'? Hell, it's no 'K-19 The Widowmaker'. Big, clanging pipes, sudden leaks, last minute sacrifices to fix a broken screw or something, it's as cliche-ridden as it is rust-ridden. Mostow has no clue as to how to engineer tension and just falls back on cramped interiors in the belief that small sets create tension by themselves.
His cast are also lost at sea. McConaughey strides around desperately trying to remind people he was one thought of as the new Tom Cruise. He was bad in 'Reign of Fire' but at least he was so over-the-top you could laugh at him. Here, he's just bad and taking it seriously which comes across as just a little bit camp. I'd like to throw him in a room with a real survivor from the U-571 mission and see who'd win in a fight. I'd put money on the old man. The worst performance is reserved for Keitel however, as the old experienced sailor. His dialogue consists of sentences like "I'm a sea-dog, I need my salt. Ooo-arr me hearties! A parrot on my shoulders and a bottle of rum! Ooo-arr ooo-arr!". Johnny Depp in 'Pirates of the Caribbean' would be more convincing as a World War Two sailor. Although I am tempted to give it another star because it stars Jon Bon Jovi...and kills him in a really nasty way.
The rest of the cast are purely filler, taking the normal cliched roles of 'young man pining for love back home', 'young man destined to die obviously' and 'young man destined to die obviously #2'Frankly, a film like 'U-571' is a big clue as why a lot of the world doesn't like America. It's like a big kid who doesn't want to share its toys. It won't let someone else have something if it can't have it for itself - a metaphor for both this film and America's attitude on a larger scale. A sickening twisting and disregard for the truth, 'U-571' deserves nothing more than your total contempt. And that's one truth they can't distort.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1812&reviewer=293
originally posted: 05/22/04 01:02:17
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USA
21-Apr-2000 (PG-13)
DVD: 24-Oct-2000
UK
N/A
Australia
20-Apr-2000 (M)
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