#5 U-571 vs. #12 Hell and High Water

VS.

PLOT:  “U-571” is based on the true story of the capture of an Enigma machine from a German u-boat.  It is very fictionalized, especially the part where the Americans are the heroes instead of the British.  An American sub is sent on a special mission to intercept a damaged u-boat and purloin the code machine by way of faking that it is a milch cow.  Unfortunately, the real supply sub arrives at an inopportune moment and now a few surviving Americans must take the u-boat back home.  The plot piles every cliché and implausibility that it can so if you have never seen a sub movie, you won’t ever have to see another one.  GRADE  =  D

“Hell and High Water” is set in the Cold War.  An ex-sub skipper (Richard Widmark) is hired by a group of scientists to recon an island in the northern Pacific due to a mysterious nuclear explosion.  The motley crew of mercenaries will travel on a ramshackle old Japanese sub.  Widmark is forced to carry the lead scientist on board as well as his comely assistant scientist.  Having a woman on board causes dysfunction and romance for Widmark.  The movie manages to justify a duel with another sub and a shore raid.  The plot is certainly unique, but not as silly as you would expect considering the premise.  GRADE  =  B

FIRST QUARTER SCORE:  U-571  =  5

                                             Hell and High Water  =  8

ACTING:   The problem with “U-571” is not with the acting.  It’s a fine cast of veterans and newcomers.  Matthew McConaughey is admirably restrained as the exec who has command thrust upon him.  It’s not exactly a ground-breaking role, but he is a good anchor for the film.  Harvey Keitel is perfect for the crusty Chief Gunner’s Mate.  The movie is essentially an ensemble piece and the actors work well together.  Too bad there is no character development.  GRADE  =  B

“Hell and High Water” is a vehicle for Richard Widmark.  He is his usual snarky self as the captain.  He also plays the amorous Jones as something of a hypocrite and predator.  The most interesting character is Bella Darvi as the hot scientist.  This role could have been sexist, but she is an egg-head who proves to be an asset to the mission.  She also puts up with the condescending sexism with aplomb.  The crew does not make much of an impression.  GRADE  =  B

HALFTIME SCORE:  U-571  =  13     

                                   Hell and High Water  =  16

TACTICS:  You may learn a lot about submarine clichés from “U-571”, but you won’t be tutored on tactics.  The movie has a scene where two subs duel submerged.  I’m not saying that might not have happened once or twice, but it would have been very rare.  There is also a successful duel with a German destroyer (alone in the mid-Atlantic?!) on the surface.  They use their deck gun to take out the destroyer’s radio antenna with one lucky shot from a German deck gun.  These guys’ learning curve is incredibly high.  GRADE  =   C

“Hell and High Water” is not really a movie about submarine warfare.  However, it must have wanted to be one because it throws in a duel with a Chinese (?) sub that make little sense for the narrative, but puts some action into the middle section.  The two subs are tracking each other through passive sonar and both go silent on the bottom.  first, but that does not justify offending our intelligence.  Not to mention the tactic of using a sub’s anti-aircraft guns (and assorted machine guns) to shoot down a bomber that is taking off.  GRADE  =  D

THIRD QUARTER SCORE:  U-571  =  19

                                               Hell and High Water  =  21

CLICHES:  “U-571” brought submarine movies into the 20^th Century, but it is very much a throwback to the 1940s style.  The director made no bones about throwing the kitchen sink in.  That might have worked with viewers who were unfamiliar with the subgenre and its well-established tropes, but for war movie lovers, it comes off as insulting.  This movie has more clichés than any submarine movie ever made.  The American sub has to cut short its leave to go on a special mission.  There is a conflict between the skipper and his exec.  They have to go below crush depth with resulting leaks and rivets popping.  There is a black mess mate, but he is given a major role.  They jettison debris and a dead body to fool a destroyer.  There is a commando on board although not for a shore mission.  The sub has to make an emergency dive leaving crew in the water.  There is a repair necessary, but costly to a crew member.    GRADE  =  F

The plot of “Hell and High Water” does not really lend itself to clichés.  This makes it the exact opposite of “U-571”.  There is a bit of a conflict between Jones and the scientist, but it doesn’t raise the temperature of the boat.  The mission is definitely special – to save the world from nuclear annihilation.  There is a commando raid to blow stuff up.  GRADE  =  B

FINAL SCORE:  U-571  =  23

     Hell and High Water  =  29

ANALYSIS:   “U-571” did well at the box office and got favorable reviews.  This attests to the entertainment value of a submarine movie even as recently as 2000.  If you haven’t seen many sub movies (and who has?) it can seem like a fresh approach to an action movie confined to the claustrophobic interiors of a sub.  The cast is attractive and there is plenty of action of the modern variety (meaning to hell with reality).  However, this is a submarine movie tournament involving only sub movies.  In comparison to its brethren, it comes off as an attempt to be the quintessential example of its ilk.  It tries too hard.  “Hell and High Water” is obviously less known.  It is also reality-challenged, but does not try to be everything you expect in a sub movie.  It does try to bring the sub movie into the Cold War and while not as good as “The Bedford Incident” (another Widmark film), it does keep the subgenre vibrant.

Enigma (2001)

               “Enigma” is a film by Michael Apted that was released in 2001.  It was partly meant to be an answer to “U-571”.   It is based the novel by Robert Harris.  The book and film are highly fictionalized accounts of the British code-breaking efforts at Bletchley Park in WWII.  Those efforts were based on captured Enigma machines.  Brilliant cryptanalysts worked to read German military messages.  In the movie, those messages involve routing u-boats to intercept a major convoy.

                The movie opens with Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott) reluctantly returning to Betchley Park after a nervous breakdown involving being jilted by beautiful fellow geek Claire (Saffron Burrows).   Jericho had earlier broken the “Shark” code when the Germans updated to a four rotor Enigma machine.  It doesn’t take long for Jericho to try to find Claire, but she is missing.  The movie becomes a mystery as Jericho attempts to find out what happened to Claire.  He finds evidence in her flat that she has been passing top secret information to someone and this may be connected to her disappearance.  His amateur sleuthing is aided by Claire’s friend Hester (Kate Winslet).  Will romance bloom?  Duh!

                Interwoven with the personal story is the bigger picture of saving the convoy by rebreaking the code.  The clock is ticking.  While Tom focuses with his comrades on doing their jobs, Hester uses an Enigma machine that she and Tom “borrowed” to read the intercepts they found in Claire’s room.  It turns out that Claire was in possession of a list of Polish officers executed by the Soviets in Katyn Forest.  The British government (represented by an agent named Wigram) wants to cover up the Katyn Massacre because it would damage their relationship with their allies, the Russians.  Claire passed the information on to another cryptanalyst nicknamed “Puck” (Nikolaj Waldau) who is Polish and had a brother whose name is on the list.  This humane gesture apparently backfired because the incensed Puck turns coat to rat out Betchley Park to the Germans to get revenge against Stalin.

                Jericho goes after Puck, but he’s not alone.  MI-5 agent Wigram (Jeremy Northam) is on to both of them.  It’s a cat and mouse game.  Puck escapes to Scotland where he hopes to hook up with a u-boat that will take him and his information to Germany.

                As far as historical accuracy, the movie is fine in depicting how Betchley Park operated and how the Enigma machine worked.  The cryptanalysts were probably not the heterogeneous characters as depicted in the film, but that is to be expected and makes the movie less bland.  In actuality, the Jericho character is based on a far from boring man named Alan Turing who was a big contributor to the code-breaking effort.  Turing was not your stereotypical geek because he was a homosexual who was later prosecuted for his sexual orientation and chemically castrated.  Not exactly the type to fall for Claire and Hester, but possibly the type to structure a more interesting movie around. 

                The movie is set in April, 1943 which is inappropriate for the secondary storyline of rebreaking the “Shark” code to save the convoy.  In reality, the German switch to a four rotor machine occurred in 1942 and had been solved for good by the time frame of the movie.  As far as the Katyn Massacre, it occurred in April and May of 1940 in the Katyn Forest in Poland.  The NKVD (the Soviet secret police) executed around 22,000 Polish officers.  The orders came from Stalin.  The movie’s Claire list is fictional, but it is true that the Churchill government knew who the villains were and yet supported the Soviet lies that the Nazis perpetrated the atrocity and he suppressed any contrary information.  The movie dramatizes a race against time to save a large convoy by solving the four rotor code, but that is not based on any actual situation.  The implication that a decision will have to be made whether to warn the convoy and thus jeopardize the code-breaking is intriguing although not really played out.  It is possibly based on the supposed decision by Churchill to allow the bombing of Coventry without warning the city.  This legend has been refuted, however.  The movie would have been more interesting if it focused on a fictional dilemma of “warn or not warn” instead of a romance/espionage plot.

                I mentioned that the movie was partly an answer to “U-571”.  If you are not familiar with that controversy, in this American movie the U.S. Navy is credited with acquiring the first Enigma machine.  In reality, the British deserve that credit.  The British were justifiably critical of that plot.  Ironically, “Enigma” can be similarly criticized.  Although briefly implied, the movie overlooks the fact that the Betchley Park operation got off the ground originally due to efforts by the Polish Cypher Bureau.  The Poles passed on their ground-breaking successes to the British.  That’s ironic, here’s what’s disgusting.  The movie (and book) incredibly makes the main villain a Pole!  At least “U-571” did not compound the offense by having a British member of the crew be a traitor.

                The movie is fairly entertaining.  The acting is satisfactory and the cast is appealing.  Special mention must be made of Kate Winslet who plays Hester as mousy.  She is not beautiful in this movie.  The chemistry with Scott is fine.  The suspense is tame, but thankfully the code-breaking is not headache inducing.  The movie just could have been a lot better and a lot more thought-provoking.  And by the way, this is not a war movie.

Rating – C+

 

the trailer

 

the full movie

 

 

 

TRAILER:  Pretty good.  Gives you an idea of the plot.  Overplays the action, of course.  The movie is not as fast-paced as implied.  B+

 

 

POSTER:  Nicely done.  Has the four main characters.  The convoy is a good touch.  A