Wednesday, August 19, 2015

U-571 (2000)

Director: Jonathan Mostow

Writers: Jonathan Mostow, Sam Montgomery, David Ayer

Composer: Richard Marvin

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Bill Paxton, Harvey Keitel, Jon Bon Jovi, David Keith, Thomas Kretschmann, Jake Weber, Jack Noseworthy, Tom Guiry, Will Estes, Terrence 'T.C.' Carson

More info: IMDb

Tagline: You won't come up for air until it's over!

Plot: A German submarine is boarded by disguised American submariners trying to capture their Enigma cipher machine.



My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

I saw this in the theater, later on DVD and finally, last night, on Blu-ray and I'm done with this one.  It doesn't get better with each viewing but worse.  Not only is this picture LOADED with gross historical inaccuracies, but it's got a few little things that don't make sense like the open shelves on the sub not having lips to prevent things from falling off them, Tyler (McConaughey) standing topside on the sub looking at the destroyer that's actively firing on them, shit like that.  Now, the action is good.  I really like how the large cat and mouse chase goes on and on in the final third of the picture.  It's well-directed, edited and so on and I would recommend seeing the picture just for that but there's just enough of the bothersome stuff that gets in the way that will now, after having seen it three times in fifteen years, get in the way of me seeing it again.  Maybe in thirty years I'll give it another go but for now I think this one is behind me and DAS BOOT (1981) is waiting for that fourth go 'round.  The Universal Blu-ray looks great but there are no extras (!!!) except for a digital copy which the package says may or may not work after 2012.  

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