U-571

Review - Entertaining.  When was the last time the word was used to describe a war film?  Starship Troopers, I think, but I can’t remember a really entertaining one.  The Thin Red Line was poetic trash, the Hot Shots films don't even count (but they're funny), Saving Private Ryan, Platoon, Casualties Of War, Full Metal Jacket, & Born On The Fourth Of July, even Coming Home fall into a category well outside of entertainment.  They're more like Mission Statements.  Powerful non-the-less but hard to define as entertaining.  U-571 is entertaining.

Perhaps more in the vein of Midway or Tora! Tora! Tora!  War is hell, mind you but we don't have to cover the audience in blood to get the point across.  This is done mainly but creating some endearing (tough word to use) characters and dialogue and sticking them into the most claustrophobic place on Earth; a submarine. Then we'll
threaten their lives with the, almost, overwhelming fear of the Nazis.

This film works because it sticks to form and doesn't try to be more than it needs to be.  I won't call this film ambitious or over-the-top and I can't call it quiet or dull.

Initially, I felt that most of the film's actors were being savagely underused and the film's resolution came to quickly.  Then about 40 minutes into the film dead actors confirmed their underused but the plot thickened.  The remaining cast is used very well and provide for some excellent tension.  I just wish I'da gotten more from the complete cast.

-m-