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U-571 is a 2000 movie directed by Jonathan Mostow, and starring Matthew McConaughey, Bill Paxton, Harvey Keitel, Jon Bon Jovi, Jack Noseworthy, Will Estes, and Tom Guiry. In the movie, a German submarine is boarded in 1942 by disguised American submariners seeking to capture its Enigma cipher machine. This movie was shot in and around Malta. The film attracted criticism for its portrayal of an Enigma capture by an American, as opposed to a British crew, early in the war.
PlotSpoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
A German U-Boat, designated U-571, torpedoes and sinks a frieghter. Seconds later, however, the sonarman reports to have detected high screws. The captain turns the periscope to sight a British destroyer moving in, forcing U-571 to dive. The destroyer drops depth charges; unfortunately for the submarine, the depth charging caused a fuel leak that the engine crew is now working on to ignite, setting them all ablaze. Due to the amount of damage sustained, the captain orders U-571 to resurface. The captain learns from his chief that they have lost a great amount of power, their starboard diesel engine is gone, and that all of their mechanics are dead. After passing a word to conserve electricty, he has his radioman send an S.O.S. to Berlin for aid.
Back on U-571, the repairs are not going smoothly and the captain is alerted that there are other men out in the water. He sees several survivors, from the merchant ship he sank, on a lifeboat asking for asylum. He orders his men to shoot them as their Führer Hitler gave instructions not to spare any survivors. His men reluctantly do so. During a rainstorm, the S-33 comes across U-571 and sends its boarding party over. They take the ship by force, losing some sailors in the process. Larson is injured during the fighting later. They capture the Enigma and begin rounding up the prisoners including the captain. Afterwards, the S-33 is torpedoed and sunk by the real resupply sub and the captain is killed. Coonan, Larson, and many others are lost as well so Tyler takes command and orders his men to dive the ship and look for the enemy. They fire a salvo of torpedoes that destroys the enemy U-Boat leaving only one torpedo in a busted tube. Tyler and his men search for survivors and find two: the black cook from the S-33, Eddy, and the captain of U-571, who disguises himself as an electrician. Tyler decides to take the disabled submarine to England. They spot an aircraft, which appears to be coming in for an attack, but is only scouting for a German destroyer. The captured electrician breaks free and shoots two of the crew, killing one, before being subdued. The German ship sends a landing crew to the submarine. Right before the German soldiers arrive, the crew of the U-571 fires a shot into the ship's radio tower and dives underneath it. The destroyer begins to drop depth charges to try to sink the U-571.
Spoilers end here.
Historical inaccuraciesThe first capture of an Enigma machine and associated cipher keys from a U-boat was made in May 1941 by the British, who captured U-110. There were some 15 captures of Naval Enigma material during World War II, of which the Americans and Canadians carried out one each (Unterseeboot 505 and Unterseeboot 774, respectively), while the British performed the rest. The U.S. Navy did not seize German Naval Enigma material until June 1944, when it captured U-505. The British captures provided critical information for breaking Naval Enigma, so that by the time of the U-505 capture the Allies were reading Naval Enigma routinely. The film caused irritation and anger in Britain. The film was raised at Prime Minister's Question Time where Tony Blair agreed with questioner Brian Jenkins MP that the film was "an affront" to British sailors. [1] In response to a letter from Paul Truswell, MP for the Pudsey constituency (which includes Horsforth, a town proud of its connection with the ship that captured of U-110), US president Bill Clinton wrote assuring that the film's plot was only a work of fiction.[2] David Balme, the British Naval officer who led the boarding party aboard the U-110, was positive about the U-571 ("a great film"[3]), arguing that the movie would not have been financially viable without being Americanized[2]. In 2006, screenwriter David Ayer admitted that U-571 distorted history and stated that he would not do it again. [4] Ayer told BBC Radio 4's The Film Programme that he "did not feel good" about suggesting Americans captured the Naval Enigma cipher rather than the British.
The movie portrays a scene in which the U-boat sailors kill the Allied merchant crewmen who have survived their ship's sinking, in compliance with naval policy and so that the survivors do not report the U-boat position. In contrast to the negative depiction of U-boat men in the movie as well as wartime propaganda, U-boat crewmen in reality were known to assist survivors with food, directions and occasionally medical aid.[5] Assistance to survivors only stopped after Admiral Karl Dönitz issued the "Laconia order" following a US air attack on U-boats transporting injured survivors under a Red Cross flag. In fact, out of several thousand sinkings of merchant ships in World War II, there is only one documented case of a U-boat crew deliberately attacking the ship's survivors: that of the U-852, whose crew attacked survivors of the Greek ship Peleus.[6] The real S-33 was not sunk in WWII. It was sold for scrap. The S-26 did not sink in a test dive. The real U-571 was sunk on the 28th of January in 1944 by depth charges from an Australian Sunderland aircraft west of Ireland. Another inaccuracy was the presence of the German destroyer in the Atlantic, as most of surface fleet of the Kriegsmarine never ventured out that far west, and none did so from 1942 onwards. The few exceptions were their capital ships, such as the Admiral Graf Spee, Scharnhorst, and Bismarck.[1] A note must be made that on the region 2 DVD release prior to the credits, the filmmakers do acknowledge that the Royal Navy indeed did capture the first Enigma device. While the film in question was based around the American efforts during the war, their attempts could not be dismissed as the continual capture of Enigma machines was essential to the continuing war effort. Also, at no point did the filmmakers or the film claim that this was the first Enigma machine to be captured. Cut scenesThe movie was originally (in the USA) rated “R” due to a scene where Lt. Pete Emmett (Jon Bon Jovi) is decapitated by flying debris. To get a “PG-13”, the shot was redone with Emmett this time knocked overboard by flying debris. This led to many audience members not knowing what happened to his character. A death scene was also filmed for Maj. Matthew Coonan (David Keith), but the effect did not work well so it was cut from the film. [7] Spoilers end here.
Cast
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