Metternich,

Can you give us some examples of why you would consider U-571 as one of the greatest war movies?

My reasons it is not a great war movie include:

- Fiction movie that uses historical information inaccurately. There is nothing wrong with a fictional war movie. But if you are going to fill the movie up with historical references, at least use them appropriately. Don’t imply it is based on fact when everything in the movie is fiction. Don’t call the movie U-571 when the U-571 had nothing to do with the plot. Call it something else. Don’t use the S-33 in the Atlantic when it was a Pacific boat. Call it something else.

I wonder why the director even named this movie U-571 in the first place. It was not like it was a well known U-boat number.

- Too much of an American slant. Now World War-II propaganda movies abound, but in this day and age, it is acceptable to have other nations be the hero. The actual stealing of an Enigma was a pretty exciting story in itself between the U-110 and the HMS Bulldog. Why totally distort history just to make a fiction story about the Americans saving the day, when the actual history is also exciting and pays credit to our British allies.

- I don’t like the way the U-boat crew was portrayed. Again, during the propaganda period Germans were portrayed as being evil. We live in a more enlightened time now where we can portray the Germans as both the enemy and as professional military men. This is not 1943 and we are at war with Germany, this was 2000 and we are allies with everyone who was in WW-II it seems. The Americans have a worse record of how we treated Japanese survivors than the Germans did in their treatment of allied survivors.

- Accepting all this as literary license, there is still no excuse for the blatant inaccuracies in the movie. It appears that the director never tried to learn anything about World War II submarines.

--There is no way you can make a S-class boat look like a Type XIV resupply boat by making a few cuts and welds.

--There is no way the S-class boat could meet up with the damaged U-571 without recognition signals. The Germans weren’t stupid

--The Type XIV resupply boat that sank the S-33 with torpedoes was not equipped with torpedo tubes

--There were no German destroyers deployed that far west

--There were no German Land based long range spotter planes deployed that far west

--Even if the whole mechanical crew of the U-571 were all killed, there would be other members of the crew with basic mechanical knowledge. Submarine crews are trained to be able to back fill all positions.

--Even though American sub crews were trained to very high levels, it would be difficult for any crew from an S-class boat to efficiently operate the U-571

---It is highly unlikely that any American crew could operate the crippled U-571 in such a way as to avoid destruction by an undamaged (other than the radio) German destroyer.

-- I seriously doubt that the OOD of the German destroyer would calmly stand by while the crew of the U-571, unsecured the deck gun, removed the tampion, moved ammunition up on the deck, loaded the gun, pointed the gun at the destroyer and took obvious actions of aiming the gun at the destroyer. These are not the actions of a friendly.

--Even if the German OOD was asleep, this is discounts the difficulties that the crew from the S-33 which had no deck gun, using the U-571’s 8.8cm/45cal deck gun to make an elevated one shot kill on the radio shack. In making shots against an elevated target, the range inclination needs to be adjusted specifically to the characteristics of the gun type. No way could they do this in one shot.

-I won’t go into the dreadful acting as that is a subjective opinion of mine.

- The character development was vapid and shallow

-- The stern but wise Captain whom the hero eventually admires after death

-- The crusty but kindly chief who keeps the crew together and gives fatherly advise to the new young Captain

-- The emotional brash kid who loses his temper and almost jeopardizes the boat

-- The sweet nice kid who ends up being sacrificed for the good of his crew.

-- Last but not least the hero who started out as being “one of the guys” but now knows the true burden of command. (Flying Leathernecks did it better)

All great stuff and innovative about 50 years ago. Today it goes beyond clichés and has become campy.

If this movie were made 30-50 years ago, it could be considered a good movie. But movie standards have changed. This is what makes listing the greatest movies difficult. How can you evaluate movies made during WW-II (with their necessary propaganda requirements) with movies made after the way when propaganda was not necessary?

Well I have rambled on about why I think U-571 stynks. These are my opinions and whether the historical inaccuracies are relevant or not is a subjective call. I am probably being too harsh on U-571 concerning the historical inaccuracies. There have been other submarine movies with historical inaccuracies. But few of them have as many inaccuracies, unnecessary inaccuracies for a movie based on fact. During the war Hollywood was not given access to sensitive design information on US Subs so some inaccuracies were to be expected. In 2000, however, there really is no need to such gross inaccuracies about a subject where pretty much all the information is available.

It could have been a great World War movie. But it just did not do it for me.

So now that I am done with my bombastic pandantics, why do you think U-571 should be considered one of the great war movies?