I've been hearing things about U-571 from friends of mine for awhile now, so with a movie featuring American actors in a submarine during World War II, you'd figure that a lot of people would flock to see it. And while it didn't do shabby box office totals, it hasn't stuck around like a lot of other recent war films have. Is it because the moviegoing public is slightly fatigued about them? Is it because all of them were compared to Saving Private Ryan whether they liked it or not? Whatever the reason is, I felt the need to check out U-571 for myself.

The film was written and directed by Jonathan Mostow, who went on to direct the third Terminator installment. U-571 is loosely inspired by the Allies' capture of a Nazi U-505 boat in World War II but, as the film says at the end credits, is dedicated to those who performed similar feats. A submarine crew is called away from liberty and assigned a top secret mission, one that its captain (Bill Paxton, Big Love) and Executive Officer (Matthew McConaughey, We Are Marshall) and a select few others on the ship are aware of. The XO, named Andrew Tyler, has been passed over recently for command of his own submarine boat, and his captain had something to do with it. While Tyler takes the mission on, it's with lip bitten. He's a friend to the crew and to fellow officers, but as the captain and the chief of the boat (Harvey Keitel, Bad Lieutenant) both tell him essentially that you have to be a boss, sometimes being a friend doesn't figure into it. The mission includes two new officers who are onboard for this mission, one is a Naval Intelligence Major (David Keith, The Lords of Discipline), the other is a reserve Lieutenant (Jake Weber, Dawn of the Dead). Their mission is to impersonate a German crew, going out to sea and rescuing the crew of another sub that is both dead in the water and in possession of an encryption device that could prove vital in deciphering German troop communication. Things go slightly off-plan, and the small crew is forced to commandeer use of the sub and has to avoid the German forces in the process of maintaining the integrity of the communication device.

Now in theory, the concept behind the story is interesting enough, but for whatever reason, it doesn't hold the viewer's interest over the almost two hours of the film. Where other films focus on the crew as much (if not more so) than the ship's officers, there is some time spent with them, but nothing that connects the viewer emotionally. If any of the ship's enlisted die, it produces nothing more than yawns. In fact, one crew member's corpse is used in a way that's almost comic, and it doesn't help that the surviving crew play the scene as seriously as possible. While some of these events are designed to transform Tyler into a leader, McConaughey looks like he's always just finished running a marathon while running through a house of horrors. He looks tired and/or out of breath in most of the scenes. And not knowing a lot about the Naval tactics of the time, I've got to think that a chunk of what's discussed here has got to be fake. Nothing can be so coincidental or so amateurish that an entire boat full of people would buy it, right?

Ultimately, I think I know why U-571 hasn't stood the test of time, and that's because of the inaccuracies the film took, some of which were admitted at the time, and some of which were admitted by co-writer David Ayer. The film became so "Americanized" as a way to bring people into the theaters that the truth was lost as a result. When it comes to war and war movies, truth is always the biggest casualty.

I'm just thinking aloud on this for a second; Universal trots out U-571 for any format that touts improved audio or video, and Fox released Master and Commander on Blu-ray recently. Sony, you're up, and I think you hold the rights to Das Boot? I'm just saying. In any case, the 2.35:1 widescreen presentation uses the VC-1 codec. For a movie mainly set in a submarine, you can forget about background depth, but the image clarity is good; I spotted paint layers on the background of the sub panel walls and could spot individual threads on Navy dress whites, and overall image detail is good. Sometimes I wish that Universal would cast aside the VC-1 and give their catalog titles the treatment they deserve, but it's a retrospect complaint, as U-571 looks excellent, despite the apparent DNR.

NOW I know why U-571 is a roll-out title from Universal; this thing sounds amazing. The DTS-HD Master Audio brings a lot of subwoofer activity in every underwater scene, but what particularly impressed me were the shots of the sub diving, and you got a POV shot of what was presumably the deck, and the water sounds resonated with clarity and immersion. But wait, there's more! Directional effects, particularly during the depth charge sequences and when the boys take the German sub deep are well-placed, with clarity and consistency. Dialogue, both when it's spoken and when it's whispered, sounds good and doesn't present any compensation problems, unless you remember that there was an explosion just after (or just before) a key spoken sequence. I just got done watching Transformers, which is a demo disc in its own right, but U-571 is right up there with a good mix of power and sonic envelopment.

Nothing too much, though the Blu-ray apparently combines the material found on the HD DVD featurettes and puts that into a U-Control Picture-in-Picture function that the HD DVD didn't possess. From examining it topically, it includes interviews with the cast and producers, and includes a bit of on-set footage of the production, along with some newsreel footage and stills which inspired the film. It's nice that Universal took the time to compress all this stuff, but there's not a lot of material here, and during the second act the bonus footage appears scarcely. Along with this, the only other feature is a commentary with Mostow. He covers the historical perspective and inspirations for the story, and while he recalls some of the work on the production, it's more informational and less anecdotal. He talks about the story and characters' examinations and explanations, the casting of the film and his motivations for it. The sound design and other facets of post-production are discussed (i.e. what's real and what's miniature or computer generated). While there are some gaps of silence through the feature, something which could have been assuaged with another participant, it's a decent track, despite the dry nature of the delivery.

U-571 is a film that has to be evaluated a couple of different ways. If you liked the film and bought it on SD or HD DVD, then I think the triple-dip to Blu-ray might be in your interest. Without having seen the HD picture, the DTS-HD audio is worth it alone, and if you still have the SD copy, well, what are you waiting for? For the smaller group like me who haven't seen the film before, I'd suggest there are other films that possess that "reference quality" tag that might be more personally appealing, but I'd still give this one a spin on your rental queue.