I rented U-571 thinking that a movie with submarines and Harvey Keitel in it would at least be vaguely entertaining, but boy, was I wrong. As for its mindless entertainment value, if you have only ever seen one u - boat movie you will essentially have seen U-571 because it goes to great pains not to miss any cliché in the book; the first third in particular is an almost exact copy of "Das Boot".
What really angers me about U-571 though, apart from it being a really bad movie, is the premeditated way it tries to remanufacture history. Without going into details: the actual Enigma machine was relatively well known, the difficult bit was cracking the code -- which was brilliantly accomplished by the British (after some spadework from the Poles). Next there is the cheap attempt to whitewash racial segregation in the US by throwing in a black sailor and then putting the onus on the Germans by showing a German sailor being shocked at seeing a black person -- maybe it was the historical inaccuracy he was astounded by. Even worse, the film promotes an almost fascist type of ideology, namely the leader principle, mindless submission to authority, the objective must be achieved regardless of the cost of human life (enemy or comrade). So ironically, U-571, with reversed sides and minus the special effects, could pass for a German propaganda movie of that era.
What really angers me about U-571 though, apart from it being a really bad movie, is the premeditated way it tries to remanufacture history. Without going into details: the actual Enigma machine was relatively well known, the difficult bit was cracking the code -- which was brilliantly accomplished by the British (after some spadework from the Poles). Next there is the cheap attempt to whitewash racial segregation in the US by throwing in a black sailor and then putting the onus on the Germans by showing a German sailor being shocked at seeing a black person -- maybe it was the historical inaccuracy he was astounded by. Even worse, the film promotes an almost fascist type of ideology, namely the leader principle, mindless submission to authority, the objective must be achieved regardless of the cost of human life (enemy or comrade). So ironically, U-571, with reversed sides and minus the special effects, could pass for a German propaganda movie of that era.