It's April 1942, and German U-boats are attacking Allied forces shipping lanes in the Atlantic up and down the East Coast. But nobody knows – at least nobody in America, except the military and the torpedoed ships.
In steps the U.S. Navy, with a daring plot to end the U-boat menace. It sets up a secret mission with a World War I submarine that's older than most of its crew. Although primitive by 1940s standards, the vessel resembles a German U-boat closely enough to be valuable in the mission.
Lt. Andrew Tyler (Matthew McConaughey) stars as an officer just passed over for his first submarine command who is now tapped as first officer on the aged sub under Lt. Cmdr. Dahlgren (Bill Paxton), the man largely responsible for Tyler not getting his command. Therein lies conflict.
A German submarine, the U-571 of the title, has become disabled. The old American sub, posing as another Nazi U-boat, is to find it and get a valuable code machine that's on board. The Germans use the machine to encrypt their radio transmissions leading them to Allied ships.
It's a "testosterone-fest of sweaty, gritty sailors shooting lots of stuff and blowing things up," according to one reviewer who took a dim view of the action. Still, action it is, and there's Harvey Keitel as Chief Klough, to boot.
The old comedy line comes to mind: "Is-a thata U-boat?" No, that'sa not-a my boat." Oh, well.
The movie was directed by Jonathan Mostow of the 1997 hit "Breäkdown." Rated PG-13 for war violence, it's new this week at Cinema One on St. Thomas and Diamond Cinemas on St. Croix.