U571

By many people, World War II is known as the Last Great War. A war when we still fought for something tangible. A war that turned ordinary men into heroes. U-571 capitalizes on this conceit and offering up an action-packed story culled from numerous real wartime experiences. At the core of the film, though, is the dissemination of one soldier who comes into his own by realizing that true heroism occurs in the heat of battle when one is least ready for it.

That soldier is Lt. Andrew Tyler (Matthew McConaughey), an intensely focused, well-liked Navy man who is desperate for his own boat. He thinks he's ready; his superior Lt. Commander Mike Dahlgren (Bill Paxton) doesn't. In one telling moment, Dahlgren asks Tyler, if it came down to it, whether he could sacrifice any of the sailors he cares so dearly for. Tyler's eyes give us the answer. He isn't ready to make the hard choices, the choices that a captain must make.

Yet, when he becomes part of an elite team sent to retrieve an Enigma code machine from a German sub, he is quickly thrown into a position where these choices stare him in the face. With Dahlgren gone, Tyler takes command and is forced to recognize his own failings. He is still a boy in so many ways, as scared and uncertain as those who look to him for guidance. Guidance he realizes he isn't ready to give. Indeed, in a moment of weakness, he tells his young crew that he doesn't know what to do; their fear is palpable. When Chief Klough (Harvey Keitel) sees this blunder, he drags Tyler away from his men and snaps him into shape. Never say you don't know, even if you don't. A captain always knows.

While U-571 is most certainly an action movie, it gets its soul from the journey that Tyler must take. As Tyler, McConaughey has really come into his own. He's no longer a soft pretty boy or an up-and-coming hunk; he's an actor now. Thoroughly embracing his role physically and emotionally, he leaves no doubt in our minds that he is a Naval officer who will live and die for his country. McConaughey brings an insightful balance to Tyler, who has to learn to trust his instincts and -- as Dahlgren has warned him -- make the tough choices. When he does, he truly becomes a man and this revelation is a rewarding one.

Yet, the focus on Tyler betrays the film's biggest weakness as well. There is little to no character development outside of the hero and this makes for a rather unbalanced film. This is not to say that the other characters aren't real, because they are. They simply don't matter as much in the scheme of things. Conflict, such as it is, exists less among the men than it does in the situation itself -- being trapped in enemy waters with a failing sub.

Luckily, director-writer Jonathan Mostow and his co-writers Sam Montgomery and David Ayer have aptly captured the claustrophobic and often terrifying world of the submarine. It's no wonder that these boats were often referred to as coffins of the sea, especially with the close quarters and the ever-present leaks reminding us that life in the deep is tenuous at best. The production design team assembled here has knocked itself out to create a realistic environment and it's no small feat that they succeeded.

While U-571 isn't a brilliant film, it succeeds in many ways. It is most certainly exciting; in fact, the action barely lets up. It sometimes struggles to hold onto the human element, but it manages to do so. The tag line for the movie begins with the phrase heroes are ordinary men? U-571 brings home this theme, exposing the complexity of the human condition and celebrating bo