Review: U-571

Daryl Carpenter writes "After months of grumbling and mild assaults, I finally vent my rage with this penultimate [ed. note: there will be another one?] assault on the cinematic drivel known as "U-571". Did he like it? I don't know. You be the judge.

Daryl Carpenter writes: U-571 is a "film" starring almost no one you've heard of, directed by some guy, and lifted mostly from older, better films. It is an insult to the eyes, the ears, the nose, the brain, common sense, and the human desire to be entertained. If I had a sixth sense, that could see dead people, it would be offended by U-571. Every time a person watches U-571, the bodies of 150,000 brave sailors killed in World War II rumble. The only reason for this $90 million mess is to prove that, in the words of Jonathan Mastow, "Das Boot was based on a lie". If the lie was that talented German directors should go to Hollywood, then that was already proven.

They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery. It's another thing when you rip-off an older, better movie, re-assemble it with some "creative license", and end up with a total piece of crap. It's another thing when you denounce the movie you just ripped off, saying it's "based on a lie". But who cares, really? Mastow is a jerk. Onwards to the movie, if I must. U-571 begins with an opening text about how the U-boats are winning the battle of the Atlantic and so on and so forth. The first thing we see is the obnoxiously lit control room of a German U-boat. Red lights flood the oversized room with little consideration for natural lighting, realism, or the art of filmaking. It is obvious that these poor extras spent at least nine takes cooped up in this horribly cramped set. U-571 destroys a tanker in a ridiculous Hollywood explosion; a destroyer comes out of nowhere, blah blah yadda yadda...

So the next thing you know, without any tension or excitement, about a zillion depth charges explode three inches away from them. For no good reason the diesel engines explode in a ridiculous Hollywood explosion, killing the only two people onboard with any idea whatsoever about how to operate a diesel engine in even an amateurish manner. The eeevelllll (I need to make a point of that now) captain orders a re-supply boat to assist.

And now we end our obvious rip-off of "Das Boot" and move on to the obligatory Big Band/Leisure Time/Sailors in nice suits/Party/Dance/token female characters scene that we've seen in a million war movies, despite the fact that less than a million war movies have ever been made. As we find out, and will not care about, Lt. Tyler (played like a sticky note by Matthew Mcwhothehellcanspellhiisname) will not get command of the leaky, obsolete piece of 25-year old war-torn scrap metal S-33. Instead, he will have to be 1st Officer (Pitiful!) while the Captain (played like a block of wood by Bill Paxton) will remain in command.

As our "story" moves on, we're introduced to some obviously important guy (played like a section of soggy cardboard by Harvey Keitel) and some ensigns and whatnots (played like scraps of dirty sheet styrene by some guys you've never heard of). As we find out, Harvey Keitel is a "sea dog who wants some salt", a line that could only be delivered with a straight face by a man who has cleaned a piano in the nude in a previous movie. Also introduced is the token black cook (played like a slab of old ham by some guy) and some guy from "ER" who's supposed to be a Marine. While the characters weren't paying any attention, the ever-resourceful dockyard workers converted S-33 into a too perfect for it's own good replica of a "German supply submarine", which is actually a regular U-boat with an extra gun. This process probably included building an entirely new hull, conning tower, and deck. All in one week; imagine what it would be like if it weren't for Rosie the Riveter? She must have been tired after THIS job. An ever-observant crewmember remarks "that looks like a god-damned Nazi sub!" This begins the process of the viewer laughing whenever the word "Nazi" is used.

S-33 leaves port. We find out, from a decoded message, that U-571 is stranded in the middle of the Atlantic. In an obviously idiotic goof by the director, the intelligence report includes an excellent photo of the Enigma machine, one of the lamest "McGuffins" in movie history. I guess the French agent couldn't fit the thing in his coat pocket. We're then presented with a bunch of sailors talking about what happens when a submarine goes too deep. One of them cracks an egg to demonstrate what happens when a submarine exceeds its crush depth.

Based on this conversation, we know the submarine is going to go too deep. No really, I think the director was trying to keep us in suspense on that one. In another scene, we see a sailor writing a love letter and look at a picture of his wife. I'll bet a fiver that that's the one that dies in the end. We're then presented with a horribly dull scene in which Lt. Tyler and his even-duller captain discuss why he can't be Captain or something useless like that to be rendered meaningless by the brainless events of the second hour of the movie. This is sort of like the first 45 minutes of Das Boot, except the actors have all the emotions of household appliances.

In case the audience is falling asleep, the movie takes us back to the German U-boat. They manage to get the diesel running for a few seconds, and it roars to life like a kid banging on a typewriter. The next thing you know, a boatload full of British survivors SNEAKS UP ON THEM AND ATTACKS OUT OF NOWHERE (did I get you excited?) and asks to be taken prisoner. So what does out EEEVELLLL NAZI GASTAPO UNDERSEE-SS U-BOAT SEA KILLER Captain do? You guessed it, he orders them to be killed. Never saw that one coming! Meanwhile, the audience stares contentedly at the screen, satisfied by the results of the massacre, rendered idiotic about the Battle of the Atlantic. So, it's finally time to take over the damn German U-boat. The crew of S-33 is SO brave, they disguise themselves in German uniforms, bring along a translator, and pack enough firepower to demolish downtown New York. You seee... They're Americans, and everything that Americans do must be really brave and full of false heroics. Next thing you know, there's an incredibly exciting (not) scene of a raft full of sailors-turned-green beret approaching the U-boat. And approaching. And approaching. And all during the lamest fake storm ever on film, which is more like a pond during a mild shower with a 10-mph wind. The scene mercifully ends when our "heroes" board the U-boat. The incompetent Germans fight back with the tenacity of a blind dyslexic with a BB gun, while the Americans score every hit. The Americans drop down the conning tower hatch one by one, are attacked by a half-dozen idiots with machine guns, who don't hit anything but get killed in the process. In one scene, reminiscent of the opening scene of "Saving Private Ryan", yet another idiotic German is shot about a dozen times from close range, which causes him to grunt and fall over, totally bloodless. War is hell.

Throughout the entire scene, not a single person is hit by a stray bullet, or appears to be disturbed by all the noise such a firefight would create. Realism! Authenticity! Historical Truth!

So you were wondering what happened to the token black guy? The Americans are loading the German POWs onto the S-33. Mr. Politically Correct asks one of the German submariners "what, you never seen a black man before." You know, it's nice that Mr. Mastow had the guts to take on an important subject like the Nazi persecution of non-Aryans in such a deft and subtle way. Take that, Speilberg! SUDDENLY ANOTHER GERMAN U-BOAT APPEARS OUT OF NOWHERE (surprised you again!) and blows up S-33, in what could only be a rather obvious case of "friendly fire".

It doesn't just blow up, it ESPLODES. Yes, esplodes. It goes beyond "ridiculous Hollywood explosion". Every male pyromaniac in the audience is probably in ecstasy. I mean it gets blowed up so good, it kills everyone except the token black guy. The camera zooms in on Tyler's face! Shock! Horror! Emotion! Futility of War! The captain, standing heroically on the bottom of a studio water tank, shouts something mockingly heroic to Tyler, sits there for a little while, and sinks like a rock. Ohhhh... Pass the tissues.

Now we come to an even dumber scene. You see, they can't let the Germans know they have the Enigma. Then why did they blow up their submarine? Anyway, this is the idiotic underwater dogfight that everyone brings up. Harvey Keitel gets two idiotic lines: "Where's the Christmas Tree!" (Camouflage for the bridge!) followed by the infamous "It's all in German!". No @!#$, Sherlock. By using the universal translator (this is Star Trek isn't it? Oh wait, they have the half-German guy onboard) they manage to dive the submarine simply by knowing that "Klar" means "Clear." At this point I was hoping the diesel induction would fail, everyone would drown, and end my misery.

No such luck. The crippled German submarine, which has taken a zillion close depth charges, hundreds of small-caliber gunshots, and several grenades, dives faster than even the original crew could make it. American ingenuity, made in Taiwan. So now the German supply boat launches two torpedoes at U-571, which miss by three millimeters or so. The Americans try to attack the other sub, but the torpedo tubes make a horrible noise, which is probably Wolfgang Petersen in agony. We know this scene is exciting because the music is someone banging on a drum very loudly and with increasing speed. Based on a crude sonar bearing, they blow up the supply sub in a ridiculous Hollywood explosion.

They surface again, and take aboard U-571's electrician and the token black guy. The German guy is the only one who has any knowledge on how to operate the vessel, but because "Klar" means "Clear", he's totally useless to them. So they handcuff him to a bunk. Oh, did I mention the electrician of U-571 is EEEVILLLL...? Now we have about 20 minutes of useless scenes just to pad things out. We see the Americans repairing the smashed U-boat because they're magic and stuff. The U-571's electrician is eevilllll. He gets loose somehow, kills some useless character and injures someone totally pointless to the story. If electricians are always that evillll, I'm seriously considering learning how to operate the switchbox myself. The token black man runs in and shouts "what do you think you're doing you Nazi sumbitch". I laugh once more. The Americans realize that the handcuff wasn't enough, so they chain him to the bunk next time. Oh, that'll really work.

So here's a scene in the Officer's mess, with Lt. Tyler and Harvey Keitel talking about something useless to the plot. The cramped mess of "Das Boot" is replaced here with an overlit, really cozy restaurant-style place with large, leather sofas, a beautifully crafted table and lots of pictures related to the U-boat war. I hear they hired the same production designer as "Das Boot", but I'm started to think they hired him based on his work in "Cabaret".

The crew is up in the conning tower (wait a minute, six on board, four up on the bridge... there's only two people running this whole operation!). They break out in an argument with the captain, (outranked solely by God) someone gets punched in the face (insert stock face-punching sound) and that's that. So really, it's okay to argue with your commanding officer in the middle of a major war.

Suddenly, OUT OF NOWHERE, COMES A PLANE! Surprised you again, didn't I? Oh, no it's a German long-range Reconnaissance Plane! No @!#$ Sherlock, it's a P-51 with floats attached, and really FREAKING huge fuel tanks to, uh, boot. But, woe is us, a, GASP! Nazi Destroyer (more giggles). Not just any Nazi Destroyer (Hmmm, Nazi. Has a nice ring to it. Nazi. Nazi Nazi. Nazi...). But some old Italian salvage ship with some fake guns attached and a big Z number painted on the side. By constantly showing the ship's flag, the idea that this is an enemy ship is beaten into the viewer's head. The Ocean-Going Tugboat/Destroyer launches a motor launch towards U-571. The crew of the Destroyer obviously doesn't see the crew of U-571 manning the deck gun, and allow them to blow up their radio shack in a ridiculous Hollywood explosion. The Germans set phasers on miss, and consistently avoid hitting the 75-meter long stationary object barely 500 feet away. Yet another crash dive, and through the magic of shoddy model work, the U-boat barely avoids colliding with the Tugboat of Doom (tm).

Another lame depth charge attack follows. You can feel the tension and fear in the soundman's voice. Several times, in the blandest voice possible, he intones "maneuvering, splashes". "I see dead submariners". McWhatshisface stands around and whispers into voicepipes. We get lots of external shots of rudders moving and propellers speeding up. According to Keitel, who gets stiffer and stiffer as the movie goes on, a depth charge can knock out your teeth and snap your spine. But of course, can't do anything to a submarine. A gazillion depth charges go off roughly at once, all about two feet from the hull. This causes light bulbs to burst, and doors to pop open. This is, of course, all for the "awesome DTS sound" that will "blow you away" and leave you half-asleep and pissed off about blowing $3.50 on renting the damn thing.

"The pressure hull canna take much more of this!" shouts the chief engineer. "We need depth factor 200 in four minutes or we'll all dead!" responds the captain. "But if we go to 200 we'll a implode!" "I said "depth factor 200!" So they go to 200 meters (note: the depth gauge only goes to 200, so Mastow doesn't think he's ripping off Das Boot), and duh, disaster strikes. The rivets start popping off, the sub sinks to 260 meters for no good reason, magically rises to 200, and everythings back to normal. Wow, that made a ton of sense. Now excuse me for rambling, I'm getting tired of writing about this piece of junk. But it's almost over. Almost over. The Evilll electrician of U-571 tries to signal the destroyer overhead, and someone finally kills the evilllll SS-Nazi Gestapo Sea Killer electrician! Yay! Onward with the gratuitous stereotyping of our former enemies!

Remember, although it is based off material written in reputable sources, Das Boot is based on a lie! I am Jonathan Mastow, and you will bow to me! Nazis, all of them! I am rich bastard American brain-washer, believe everything I say! Mwahha-haha-ha!

And now for the inevitable Tale of Two Cities- good of the several apparently outweighs the good of the one type mock heroic ending. This time our sacrifice is some whiny ensign who's really a hero or something like that. Lt. Tyler orders our asking-for-it back to the stern torpedo room bilge to find the contrivly (is that a real word?)-placed handle that activates the stern torpedo tube compressed air thingy or such nonsense. You see, they're gonna blow up the German destroyer, because it looks cool when you do. And if they don't, they'll be tortured by the SS and Gestapo, oh my!

So our worthless sacrifice (I mean, it's a vulnerable destroyer in the middle of the Atlantic without any protection and no radio, but still....) goes off to activate the torpedo tube. Some @!#$ back in Kiel put the compressed air starter in the bilge. He struggles for what feels like an eternity, at one point loosing his breathing device. This moron, who we're supposed to feel sympathy for, struggles for two whole minutes trying to get it back on. Finally, he pulls the handle, the diesel engines turn on (twenty meters underwater!) and they fire the torpedo. Almost....Over. The destroyer REALLY ESPLODES! KABOOM! POWWEY! UP IN FLAMES! DECK BLOWS UP! WHOLE SHIP GOES BOOM! 10,000 TONS OF GUNPOWDER GOES UP! SINKS IN SECONDS!

So we find out that our little hero (sniff..sniff) died. So please, don't try to hold your breath for six minutes. The token black man says something idiotic that's supposed to be moving, and the music goes all cheesy on us. Oh, during the battle a six-inch shell hit U-571. To be honest, I don't know whether the shell or the exploding destroyer did them in. They decide to pre-emptively end the movie. The fatally wounded captain watches as his bombed out submarine slowly sinks into the oily water, the token black guy runs over to help, Lt. Tyler collapses as blood runs out his mouth, camera pans out, token black guy stares in horror, fade to black.

No actually, they all crowd into the goofiest looking dingy you've ever seen, and start to row(!) this oversized condom something like a thousand miles to shore. An incredibly fake-looking CGI PBY Catalina flies overhead, with huge "US NAVY" markings on the wings, ending our misery. I would have been just as happy if a fake-looking CGI Fw. 200 flew overhead, with "NAUGHTY NAZIS" written in huge letters on the wings, and dropped a stick of depth charges on them. But not in an American movie, I guess.

My experience with this movie is certainly unusual. Back in August, I rented this movie called "Threads" from the public library. It was this obscure BBC TV movie from the eighties about the effects of nuclear war, made on a rather tight budget. What I saw was so graphic, realistic and horrifying, it still sticks with me. At first it had little effect on me. Days later, I would wake up in the middle of the night, sweating, in a panic, afraid that the bombs would drop, that everyone I knew would die, and that in ten years, the human race would be reduced to mutated savagery. Days after I saw U-571, I woke up in the middle of the night, sweating, in a panic, afraid that Jonathan Mastow would make even more crappy submarine movies, that he would say that Das Boot was based on a lie, and that ten years from now he would be the most well-paid director in Hollywood. And yes, I'm joking about this paragraph. But not the one about "Threads". Oh, and John Bon Jovi was in this mess somewhere. Playing a war correspondent, I think. No, I didn't say that. I didn't say that....

Comments

Why Review this old movie?

[Arteasia]

Why are we reviewing this old movie?

Re:Why Review this old movie?

[Anonymous Coward]

New Slashdot slogan: News for Nerds trapped in time, Stuff that used to matter

Re:Why Review this old movie?

[jlower]

Don't know but that was a fun read on a Sunday morning. This guy could fill in for Mr Cranky.

Isn't that that film...

[56ker]

that's historically inaccurate, was released ages ago and is yet another film where the Americans solely win World War II without any help from anybody?

Re:Isn't that that film...

[belroth]

Isn't that that film that's historically inaccurate, was released ages ago and is yet another film where the Americans solely win World War II without any help from anybody?

II'm sorry, but you'll have to narrow it down a bit more....

bletchley park

[Anonymous Coward]

the british code breakers at bletchley park were responsible for the intelligence coup that was the primary result of this incident. what most people don't know is that alan turing of the famous turing test was one of the scientists who worked as a code breaker during the war.

Re:bletchley park

[Anthy]

I feel sorry for poor Turing. After all he did for his country and computing science in general, he was driven to commit suicide because of prosecution from the government and public over his homosexuality.

Re:bletchley park

[MillionthMonkey]

Actually, the Enigma's codes were already broken *BEFORE THE WAR* by Polish codebreakers. It's not widely known since they gave all their info to Britian and France after Poland was conquered, and the Brits basically banished them.

The Enigma's cipher was broken before the war by Marian Rejewski in Poland, who succeeded in separating the problem of finding the Enigma's plugboard settings from the problem of finding its initial scrambler settings. Using a catalog created from previous intercepts, decrypting an Enigma message could be done with pencil and paper within hours. In Dec. 1938 the Nazis went from a system of 3 scrambler disks to one with 5. This made the keyspace too vast to calculate by hand and the Poles could no longer intercept German transmissions. But the Polish work did give the British a huge head start.

A penultimate mistake

[sanermind]

...that I used to make myself until a friend of mine finally corrected me with a dictionary. I always thought it meant "super-ultimate", and made an inadvertant fool of myself using it improperly. It actually means just before, or not quite, ultimate.

At least I feel a little better that I'm not the only one to make this mistake.

Insult to British

[Anthy]

Not only in this movie an insult to Americans who died during WWII, it is also an insult to the *British* who actually captured the Enigma machine and cracked the code:

From Roger Ebert's review:

"In case you're wondering, the German sub on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is U-505, and it was boarded and captured not by submariners, but by sailors from the USS Pillsbury, part of the escort group of the carrier USS Guadalcanal. No Enigma machine was involved. That was in 1944. An Enigma machine was obtained on May 9, 1941, when HMS Bulldog captured U-110. On Aug. 23, 1941, U-570 was captured by British planes and ships, without Enigma. This fictional movie about a fictional U.S. submarine mission is followed by a mention in the end credits of those actual British missions. Oh, the British deciphered the Enigma code, too. Come to think of it, they pretty much did everything in real life that the Americans do in this movie."

Re:Insult to British

[Anonymous Coward]

If the US's closest ally, Britain, see's Hollywood's constant rewriting of history as an insult you can start to understand some of the indignance that breeds in the Arab world.

You see it over and over again, 'Private Ryan' was actually the story of a British soldier from Coventry, and it happened before the US even entered the war, same goes for U-571.

I heard they're going to Americanise The Great Escape next, I find it quite amusing actually, a young nation having to appropriate other people's history in order to make itself look/feel good.

However it's scary to think that countless Americans take Hollywood's output as Gospel, hence all the dumb comments and notions that arise from Braveheart or 'The Patriot', just another two films have no basis in reality.

Re:Insult to British

[Rob Kaper]

If the US's closest ally, Britain, see's Hollywood's constant rewriting of history as an insult you can start to understand some of the indignance that breeds in the Arab world.

Very insightful, but the problem is that most of the people on the world (not just Americans) don't know that Hollywood and revisionist history walk hand in hand. Let alone that thet know the real world issues at hand.

If India made a movie about a capitalist president on coke flying a few commercial jetliners into the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur with India saving the civilised Hindi world from further terrorist actions by those greedy merkins, maybe that would wake people up. "Hey, that sounds familiar, but didn't that go slightly different?".

Of course, noone would see that movie because it has no keyword on AOL. :)

Re:Insult to British

[IvyMike]

If the US's closest ally, Britain, see's Hollywood's constant rewriting of history as an insult you can start to understand some of the indignance that breeds in the Arab world.

Wait a second... the reason that terrorists blew up the WTC was because they were mad about the movie U-571? Jeez, Hollywood should be more careful next time.

Re:Insult to British

[Anonymous Coward]

A few more cases for the record:

The great escape - The original maps of the camp involved in the great escape show that the 3 tunnels involved led directly from the British sector to the outside world. The Americans were held in a seperate compound and none were involved in the escape.

U571: Captured by H.M.S. bulldog along with the Enigma code book.

Colditz: Planned movie involving American soldiers in Colditz prison escape (where there were none).

Pearl Harbour: U.S airmen posted to the UK to server alongside RAF Pilots. Fact - American volunteers sailed to the UK and joined the RAF to fight the Battle of Britain but they were enrolled in the RAF, wore RAF uniforms with "America" shoulder badges and were not from Active US forces. This was at a time when the states were lease / lending us arms ( which we still pay £175 million a year for ) and refusing to get involved. To these American airmen and other foreign volunteers we British owe a deep and eternal debt of gratitude. To America we owe the lease lend payments.

To suggest however that the twin towers attack happened because of Hollywood is not the point.
As a brit I feel pretty pissed off about the factual distortions of Hollywood for the following reason. People will believe the most ridiculous bollocks if fed it in the right way. In the UK we have a paper called the Sun. It's a murcoch (Fox / News International publication) and is the top selling paper in the UK.
The contents of the Sun are usually the most inane and biased crap you've ever come across, plus tits on page 3. People who read it regularly can often be heard saying "it's all crap but it's a laugh to read" before spouting the contents as fact 10mins later during a conversation.
Hollywood movies based around real events are advertised as based on a true story and this seems to stick deep in the mind of the viewer as "absolute truth". Also people may read a story once but their chances of having the film replayed every year or two on TV (every bloody day on cable) means that the revised story sticks.

I think the reason sept. 11th is more down to the fact that the USSR fell apart. Reason, simple.
While the USA and the USSR existed as powerful entities neither side could flex it's muscles re: foreign policy as the fear of nukes kept them in an often uneasy imbalance. With the collapse of the USSR America is know free to bludgeon it's way around the world threatening anyone who gets in the way. Russia can't object 'cos their ecomomies screwed and they need World Bank / foreign support and China is on the leading edge of a trade based economic boom that will no doubt make their leaders very rich.

The U.S. currently relies on Saudi for a large part of it's oil requirements and the Saudi Royals need American support to stay in power as they are a dodgy bunch who would have been out years ago if they didn't have any oil.

I'll state now that I have nothing against Israelis or Israel. Israel does have a right to exist as does Palestine and I have had several Jewish friends during my lifetime. The point is I am no Anti-Semite or right wing extremist and the following is not based on some bigoted, racist belief. Got that off my chest and here we go.

The US government is shit scared of the American jewish lobby and will allow a lot of Palestinians to be slaughtered before pissing them off by reigning in Israel. While Israel is allowed to go trashing it's way around the Middle East with impunity Arabs get jumped on if they even fart near Jerusalem.
In such a delicate area you would thought that diplomacy would be the best bet but then right wing Israeli govermnent build settlements in occupied Paelstinian land (how provocotive is that) inflaming the situation.

I read an interesting article about Gerald Bull the designer of the supergun and it contained info pointing to Bulls guns being used to provide the first burst of thrust required to launch a rocket that could deploy a satellite in orbit. The article suggested that the supergun was commisioned by Iraq to launch comms satellites that would allow Saddam, the friendly neighbourhood pschyco nutter bastard to broadcast "Mad Bastard T.V. across the middle east. Useful to a dictator who gets too big for his boots and turns on his arms dealer once his old enemy stops fighting him.

Whether this is true is irrelevant. A sufficiently large group of Muslims believe that the US is a friend of Israel and an enemy of theirs and the lack of support from anyone (now the USSR's gone) through the legal channels is the reason for the attacks. People who consider themselves to be in a desperate position will take desperate action.

Dubya's "bomb" deplomacy is just pouring petrol on the fire that is Middle Eastern politics. The soaring popularity he enjoys guarantees that all this is going to continue, more so as America approaches the next presidential election.

Blairs actions are disturbing in the extreme. Regardless of the possibilty of the UK being a target as a result, Blair is giving the US the support and the British taxpayer is paying for it. Bollocks to that! Lease / Lend mate that's the way. How about writing off the WW2 bill for a start and then some more.
Germany and Britain were bankrupted by WW2 and the British Empire fell while the US actually made a profit. Time Britain made some money out of putting it's arse on line for others.

Can't wait for the movie ;-)

In other breaking news...

[afabbro]

...Gone With the Wind was pretty good.

Anyone seen The Wizard of Oz yet?

Please

[TheRealFixer]

Movie reviews attempting to be funny while bashing everything in sight, just for the sake of being "cool", is sooo 2001.

Now _thats_ what I call a review

[Quixote]

Maybe Katz can learn a thing or two about reviewing flicks from Daryl.

There is only ONE *real* submarine movie.

[Bowie J. Poag]

Das Boot.. It even has an archetypal Unix admin that goes crazy in the engine room from all the stress, and from all the clatter from the diesel engine. :)

Cheers,

oh please

[Ender Ryan]

Oh please get this awful filth off the front page of /.. Sure, U-571 wasn't a really great film or anything, but this reviewer is going nuts about historical inaccuracy in a film that is intended to be fiction.

Besides, it's like 2 years old or something...

Re:oh please

[scott1853]

And another thing... Should we know who this reviewer is? Doing a search on Daryl Carpenter in /. returns nothing except 4 user accounts which haven't posted any comments. And I can't believe a professional reviewer wrote such a thing. A 3 page rant is a little much, especially on such an old movie.

So this person e-mailed a review in to michael and it got posted? Hmmm... personal friend? Blackmail? /. Editor on drugs?

Re:oh please

[doorbot.com]

U-571 was released in 2000 (and late 2000 if I recall). So that gives our valiant reviewer an entire year and a half to write that review. I was actually entertained by U-571 (imagine that, an entertaining movie), so I fail to see why someone would have such a personal vendetta against it. Was the author a disgruntled extra perhaps? Or just someone who thought, "Hey, I'm going to write like I've never written before -- a scathing review of a historically inaccurate movie! I'll make it my life's work. And when I'm done, I'll post it to Slashdot! I'll be rich and famous -- geeks will bow down to my awesome intellect and shower me with small denomination bills!"

Frankly, I stopped reading the article after the first paragraph. It seemed childish. I'm not going to bash the Slashdot crew for posting it, though, because some of the comments are hilarious.

I wonder...

[nagora]

If I'd written a similar review of Fellowship of the Ring (and I could, no problem), would it have been accepted or rejected?

I think I can guess. It's okay to have a rip at a crap film that we're all agreed was crap but not to have a go at a crap film that lots of people here liked for some reason.

So, what about a halfway house: a review of "Titanic", a crap film that loads of "normal" people liked, would that get on?

TWW

Well I'll be damned...

[Eagle7]

Someone finally beat out Katz in the full-of-myself, over-opinionated, no-one-bothers-to-read-the-whole-thing useless article contest.

a review of the review.

[discogravy]

...and bullshit like this is precisely why a pay version of slashdot is a bad idea. i wouldn't subscribe to a paper whose editors ignored serious stories in favor of publishing tripe like this; It'd be an insult. I mean, fine, fine, fine, you guys get your content from your audience and that's cool, cos ultimately this is a site about and for a unique audience with a singular focus (tech); but fucking putting this on the front page? "penultimate"? and you have the gall to ask for my money?

In the words of cartman: That is mighty weak.

Re:Everything you know is wrong

[Mike Connell]

This is only half of the story. the Poles had the early machine broken, but when Enigma was upgraded in 1938 from 3 to 5 scramblers, and from 6 to 10 plugboard cables they could no longer break it (in any useful amount of time). Turing and the Bletchley Park group took up where the Poles left off. It's perhaps true that the Poles haven't gotten as much credit as they deserve, but it's also true that the Enigma that Rejewski broke wasn't the same Enigma that Bletchley Park broke - and the later was of far greater importance.

Reviewer was right on, if late

[mike_the_kid]

I can not explain why this review came when it did, and it is unfortunate that it is so late because anyone who would have seen it has probably already seen it.

I wish I had read this review about two months ago, so that I would not have rented this movie. I could make a better movie about submarines filming turds in the toilet. Really.

Keep in mind that every time the protagonists sink a ship, it "blowed up real good". So based on this movie, you would think that when a submarine or other ship dies, it goes out with a bang. But later on in the movie, the protagonists fool the destroyer that is hunting them into thinking they are dead by jettisoning the bilge and a dead body.

I saw this movie, and I have seen Das Boot, and if you are interested at all in what a u-boat was like, or if you want to see a good movie, see Das Boot. If you are a serious masochist, see U-571.

Re:Reviewer was right on, if late

[Lumpy]

Umm no if you want to know what a U-boat is like, go to chicago and see one yourself.. Actually sitting on a bunk in U-505 with another 30 people and learning the average crew was about what you have onboard now is learning. Reading HISTORY is learning going to visit the USS Silversides, ot the Thrasher or the several orther Disel submarines that are museums around the states is learning.

you learn NOTHING from going to a movie.. and it pisses me off whenever I hear someone try and tell someone to learn from a piece of fantasy designed to entertain. Want to learn to program computers? watch Hackers... Want to learn how to be an astronaut? watch Apollow 13 or the right stuff or armegeddon.. Bah. How about getting off the couch and actually touching history, or wander around your nearest GI cemetery and see the almost endless white gravestones of the men that died for your freedom..

I personally had the privilidge to help one of the last surviving crewembers of the SS-679 Silversides start the Engines for one last time (for him, I've started them countless times) and see a 78 year old man break into tears to the wonderful music he hears (the disels are Noisy as hell, and the engine room fills with white smoke right after startup... only a person who loves that boat would be that happy in that atmosphere)

and then later tell me several stories about life onboard, things you will never read of in the history books, see a movie about, or hear without meeting these fine men.

you want to learn about history? Touch it, be a part of it, wallow in the bilges... then you will learn history.

This article an off topic troll.

[Fastball]

Waste no more of your time and move on to the next article. If only we could mod articles down...

Your review is inaccurate as well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets pick this appart piece by piece untuil I got so disgusted by your review that I couldnt read anymore.

"As we find out, and will not care about, Lt. Tyler (played like a sticky note by Matthew Mcwhothehellcanspellhiisname) will not get command of the leaky, obsolete piece of 25-year old war-torn scrap metal S-33. Instead, he willhave to be 1st Officer (Pitiful!) while the Captain (played like a block of wood by Bill Paxton) will remain in command."

First of all, he was turned down for HIS OWN COMMAND not the command of the S-33. In order for a Lutennant to make command, he must first be recomended by his current CO. Furthermore, his reasoning for not getting command are quite sound. Also note that today, CO's of submarines are Commanders, not Lt. Commanders or Leutennants unlike WWII. Therefore this scene is rather accurate.

"Also introduced is the token black cook (played like a slab of old ham by some guy) and some guy from "ER" who's supposed to be a Marine."

In WWII, the United States segregated the navy. The only thing that a black man could do at all in the USN was to be a cook. Since there were many black men who wanted to serve their country and did so bravely, the MS rating was flooded with black men. Again, another very accrurate historical fact. And again, the token black man would have probably been on nearly every submarine in the US Atlantic Fleet, let alone surface combatants.

"While the characters weren't paying any attention, the ever-resourceful dockyard workers converted S-33 into a too perfect for it's own good replica of a "German supply submarine", which is actually a regular U-boat with an extra gun."

The addition of a single plate of metal across the front of the sail, along with an additional rail is all that would have been necessary. The pice could have been prestaged and simply welded into place upon the S-33's arrival. Again, another common thing to be done as you have the pieces that are required before the submarine returns to port.

"So what does out EEEVELLLL NAZI GASTAPO UNDERSEE-SS U-BOAT SEA KILLER Captain do? You guessed it, he orders them to be killed. Never saw that one coming!"

Unfortunately this also is historically accurate. Adm Donitz (the CO of the German Navy) ordered in early 1942 that any surviors were to be shot instead of picked up contrary to maritime rules. This was done after an incident with another UBoat tried to save the crew of a Merchant vessle in the Mediteranian. They declared a neuteral area around the U boat and were eventually bombed by a US B25 while attempting to save the surviors. However, Donitz was not found guilty at Neuremberg because Gen. MacArthur had sent a very similar message the US Pacific fleet.

"The crew of S-33 is SO brave, they disguise themselves in German uniforms, bring along a translator, and pack enough firepower to demolish downtown New York. You seee... They're Americans, and everything that Americans do must be really brave and full of false heroics."

They carry tommyguns, and one small amount of explosives. Additionally there is one grenade used in the scene. That equates to a lot of firepower? The average US Soldier in WWII carried over 50 lbs of equipment into battle. This would include a weapon (rifle or tommy gun), 100 or more rounds of ammunition, their helments, their packs, 3 grenades, etc. etc. These guys carried maybe 20lbs and this is if all of them had explosives and all of them carried 3 grenades.

"The incompetent Germans fight back with the tenacity of a blind dyslexic with a BB gun, while the Americans score every hit"

One american is shot and killed in that scene. They did recieve some training which obviously included planning (not difficult on a single level submarine), and there were many Germans killed. Of course, the S33 crew did have the element of supprise.

"SUDDENLY ANOTHER GERMAN U-BOAT APPEARS OUT OF NOWHERE (surprised you again!) and blows up S-33, in what could only be a rather obvious case of "friendly fire"."

There are many ponts to make here. First of all, Germans used the wolf pack tactic which included at least two submarines operating in the same area at all times, secondly the German commander did radio for help and was expecting another submarine within 12 hours, and finally the appearance of an unknown submarine with a crew transfer taking place would have caused suspicion at any time. It did not appear out of nowhere, it appeared out of the storyline which you were very obviously not paying attention to.

i"It doesn't just blow up, it ESPLODES. Yes, esplodes. It goes beyond "ridiculous Hollywood explosion"."

The location of the diesel fuel and torpedoes that were loaded on the boat would have caused a huge explostion when combined with a direct hit. Yes most submarines that sank in WWII are in tact for the most part on the bottom. However, most were not hit directly by a torpedo which is designed to penetrate the hull and explode inside to cause the maximum amount of dammage. A direct hit to a submarine by a torpedo would have probably hit as a minimum the diesel fuel causing a huge explosion and a large fire topside.

I will give you one thing though, the acting in the movie is not all that great. However, historically it is fairly accurate if you remember that it is FICTION. I agree the British did a whole lot in WWII, and enigma was cracked by them and they deserve the credit. However, the second enigma (the one with the sixth wheel) was found and turned over to the British by a US Lead expidition. The German navy did not change their Enigma when Hitler ordered the change to the sixth wheel untuil late in 1944.

As for the bravery of the US militiary, we took 6,000 casualties on the beaches in D-Day, while the British army commanded by their "Hero" Monty (remember, none of the US commanders liked this man) drank his tea. Monty told Ike that the British would have Caen by the end of the day... Six months later it was the US forces who had to come in to help Monty achieve his goal that he was six months late in accomplishing.

Personally, being an x-submariner myself, the movie was not all that bad other than the acting. Next time, pay attention to the dialogue and youll catch more of the story.

Re:Everything you know is wrong

[Hast]

I think that what the Polish team did was extremely important for moral. They called in teams from France and England only a few weeks before the Germans invaded Poland and demostrated what they had done.

At that time everyone else was convinced that Enigma was uncrackable. Ironically it was actually a german who gave the specifications of the Enigma to a Polish diplomat. (The Enigma was used before the war as a crypto device for the industry and for diplomats.)

"The Code Book" by Simon Singh has a few chapters dedicated to it and Bletchley Park. Very interesting reading. Truly the unsung heroes of the war. (Because what they did was classified, so no-one knew about their great accomplishments.)

A little foreshadowing...

[thatguywhoiam]

I'm not really sure why this review popped up now, either; it's like the author saw it on TV last night and just got really worked up about it.

On another note, here's a little nugget to take away with you: the clown who directed U-571 (Jonathan Mastow) is directing Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

You may not have liked Titanic, but I'll take Cameron any day of the week over this hack.

.r

wtf?

[truesaer]

First this movie is really old. Second, this is what people are paying to read ad free? An indignant diatribe that rambles on and on and describes every scene in the movie? One that is filled WITH LARGE ANGRY STATEMENTS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS?

I really can't believe that there was nothing better to post. That the "editors" couldn't have tried editing the insanity out of this. That they couldn't have picked someone to review this movie in a balanced way instead of picking something that would be rejected by a middle school newspaper.

This is a sad and pathetic day for /.

Re:Everything you know is wrong

[Hard_Code]

I still think it's funny that when the British first came to the Poles asking them how in the hell they cracked it - the Poles just stared blankly and told them the Germans used the (out of potentially millions) keypress-value mappings: a-a b-b c-c d-d

hehe

"starring almost no one you've heard of..."

[stain ain]

I've not seen the film but went to imdb to see the cast for U-571.

The movie can be horrible, i don't know, but you must have heard of Matthhew McConaughey (EdTv, Contact), Harvey Keitel (Pulp Fiction, Smoke, The Piano) or Bill Paxton (Twister, Titanic). Or at least from John Bon Jovi!

Problem with the enigma picture?

[heliocentric]

You have a problem that they had this picture of the enigma but don't have a real one? Did you ever stop to realize that the enigma machine was a commercialy available product in pre-WWII days and was used by the banking industry? Everyone involved in breaking it knew how it worked, no one happened to know the internal wiring the Germans tossed in. Once that was figured out (well, actually one was smuggled to the Brits in a super secret meeting) now we had the problem of the daily wheel positions. The problem wasn't so much finding the enigma machine, it was finding the code book!

"Das Boot was based on a lie"

[Big Torque]

I have researched WWII submarines and I can tell you that. The story of DAS BOOT or "the boat" was based on the war correspondent that sailed with U97 and has been confirmed by as much of the crew that could be found including the caption. It is a true story. The shots of inside the sub and the procedures are all 100 % accurate even to the type of U-boat users a type VII. The only two part that have been disputed was the part where the captain pulls a gun on one of the crew, And the very end when most of the crew and captain dies, that did not happen. U571 was extremely bad. I hatted everything about it. it is truly is an insult to any one who served on submarine.

This is a terrible review

[IvyMike]

Yes, the movie U-571 was historically inaccurate, and it also failed to entertain in many ways, but this "review" is hardly any better. The reviewer has an obvious agenda, and the review reads more like an seventh-grade book report than a professional criticism. There's a time and a place for this kind of "review" (like, say, April 2000 when it would have been relevant) but I'd prefer not to see this kind of thing on Slashdot again.

U-571 is a "film" starring almost no one you've heard of, directed by some guy...

This is true, if you've never heard of Matthew McConaughey (Contact), Bill Paxton(Apollo 13), Harvey Keitel (Pulp Fiction), and Jon Bon Jovi (Ally McBeal). And couldn't the reviewer be bothered actually name the director he's blaming for this? (I guess he does later, although he misspells director Jonathan Mostow's name "Mastow" every single time)

The only reason for this $90 million mess is to prove that, in the words of Jonathan Mastow, "Das Boot was based on a lie".

A more complete version of this quote, if you care, is from the Washington Post, and reads, " "based on a lie" because "[...] it pretended that the captains and crews were submariners first, and only incidentally Nazis. They were dedicated Nazis; they had to be to fight that hard." Did "Das Boot" underemphasize the Nazi patriotism of the German submariners? I don't know, but it seems like a valid viewpoint to try to express.

...some ensigns and whatnots (played like scraps of dirty sheet styrene by some guys you've never heard of)

Apparently, every movie made by Hollywood that doesn't have an "All-Star" cast with already established actors is bad, since it might star actors I've never heard of.

The Evilll electrician of U-571 tries to signal the destroyer overhead, and someone finally kills the evilllll SS-Nazi Gestapo Sea Killer electrician! Yay! Onward with the gratuitous stereotyping of our former enemies!

Wow, a WWII movie that portrays the Germans as the bad guys. That's a new one, aside from the ten-thousand other WWII movies.

Is U571 inaccurate? Sure, the tale told never happened, and the historical events closest to this tale were done by the British, not the Americans. Does that really matter on a sort of ho-hum movie like this, that few watched, even fewer remember, and nobody thinks is anything but mild entertainment? Nope.

I look forward to your review of Pearl Harbor in 2004, though.

Disappointed.....

[jsimon12]

In typical American style it seems the majority of comments on this sub are about how this movie is "ancient history". Heaven forbid we discuss anything over a week old, especially a movie as crappy as U-571. I just don't get it, I am surprised intelligent people, like those on Slashdot, would stand by while history is re-written in typical Hollywood style. Braveheart, U-571, Gladiator, etc etc all total farces, but our TV watching/taught populous takes it as the word of history. Oh well this society is doomed, we don't know where we come from and have no idea where we are going.

Filthy Critic already reviewed it anyway.

[mtDNA]

This guy sounds like a less-cynical version of the Filthy Critic.
Filthy has a much better (and filthier) review here: http://www.bigempire.com/filthy/u571.html.

Re:Supersonic Pioneers

[aebrain]

The Bell X-1 in no way was a copy of the M52. It merely copied a large amount of the technology. Unlike the M52, it used primitive rockets rather than an advanced afterburning turbojet; it used a low-tech straight wing rather than the notched-ogive of the M52, which caused severe vibration to the Bell design; and the pilot had little chance of escape whereas the M52 had a jettisonable capsule, like the F-111. On the other hand, the ".50 calibre bullet" shape of the fuselage, and the all-moving tail, were "inspired" by data from the Miles design.

My father was an aerodynamicist working on the Miles M52. Here's the story as I got it from him:

There was an agreement that there should be co-operation between the US and UK on supersonic aircraft research. So the US delegation came over to Miles Aircraft (then working on the "black" M-52 project), and took away lots of data, especially from the wind-tunnel (more advanced than anything else in the world at the time). They also took data about the M-52's all-moving tail, the so-called "all-flying tail". When it came time for the Brits to visit the US, they were told "No can do, our work is Top Secret". Because their new Bell project had suddenly acquired *gasp* an all-flying tail as it turned out. As late as the 90s many Bell corp engineers were still under the impression that this was an All-American Invention.

But the real stinger was when the M-52 got cancelled. All of the calculations, blueprints, test data, special instruments and the analogue computer my Father had invented specifically for stress calculations on supersonic wings, all got bundled into Tea-Chests and sent to Bell Corporation in the USA. OTOH the UK Government got a large loan to help rebuild bomb-damage taken (for the most part) before the US entered WW2.

Links? Ok, try the M52 exhibit at the Museum of Berkshire Aviation. Or the Miles Aircraft history page. A plan view and video is available here.

Shortly before he died, my father met General "Chuck" Jaeger. He was glad to know that his work was put to good use.

The UK Channel 4 made a great documentary about the M52, including some footage of the rocket-powered model that hit Mach 1.5 in tests in the late 40's, after the project had been cancelled.

Re:Everything you know is wrong

[markmoss]

Note also that most Japanese codes used a Japanese-built Enigma machine, and the American Navy cracked that on their own. (It may have been simpler than the German military machines, and the Japanese changed the keys far less often than the Germans.) By December 1941, they could sometimes decrypt transmissions to the Japanese embassy in Washington faster than the Japanese enigma operators. There was a long message which the ambassador was supposed to hand to the American government at a particular time, just before the bombs started falling on Pearl Harbor. It didn't get decrypted and typed in time at the embassy, but analysts were reading it down in the basement of the Navy headquarters a few hours before the attack.

It wasn't exactly a declaration of war, but maybe this was a translation error. At any rate, given the history (in 1905, a declaration of war was handed over to the Russian foreign minister, just minutes before a surprise attack destroyed the Russian Pacific fleet at anchor in Port Arthur), there was no doubt that this message indicated the time at which the Japanese would attack somewhere. They just didn't know where, and since this was sunday morning it took hours to track down high-ranking officials in order to get permission to release any information derived from decrypts. (That we could decrypt the Japanese Enigma was probably the most highly classified secret of all...)

That still wasn't enough to prevent surprises - the Japanese fleet simply didn't allow anything about the Pearl Harbor attack to go out on the radio or anywhere else it might be intercepted. So once the Admiral in charge had been located, they sent warnings to Manila, Singapore, etc., of a possible night-time attack by surface ships (like Port Arthur), and tried but failed to contact Pearl Harbor about a possible dawn attack. Basically, no one thought the Japanese had that much nerve, or the ability to refuel destroyers at sea so their fleet could travel to Hawaii directly from the home islands. If an attack had been coming, they expected it would have stopped in at Japanese held islands southwest of Hawaii, where various patrols would have spotted them. There was a joint Army-Navy exercise run every year on the premise of some sort of Japanese sneak attack towards Hawaii, and in every exercise the attackers were beaten badly, and obviously Japanese intelligence was good enough to know this...

And besides that, everyone knew that torpedo planes, which were the main attack arms of the Japanese carriers, didn't work in harbors, because the torpedos dropped from an airplane would dive deep initially and get stuck in the mud at the bottom. Everyone except the British who had sank half the Italian fleet this way already, and the Japanese, who made the world's best torpedoes...