April 24, 2000 -- I'm still waiting for the first great action movie of the year. Certainly "U-571" isn't it. Nothing comes up to the level of last year's "The Matrix" yet.

It is fairly obvious that writer-director Jonathan Mostow was trying to re-create the dramatic tension of the king of the submarine genre, "Das Boot," but he's not in the same ocean, nor does it reach the level of "The Hunt for Red October," "The Enemy Below," "The Abyss" and other top-line films featuring submarines. It's not a bad try, however.

The premise is good. During World War II the S-33, an old U.S. Sub, is disguised to look like a German re-supply sub so it can rendezvous with the crippled U-571 in the Atlantic. The idea is to get a commando crew on board to take the sub by force and remove its Enigma code device. The device and the code keys are needed by the Allies to break the German code. German sub "wolf packs," coordinated by the unbreakable radio signal code have been decimating Allied shipping in the Atlantic.

The daring raid, led by Marine Major Coonan (played by David Keith, a Kurt Russell look-alike) is successful in securing the Enigma device, but the real German re-supply submarine shows up too fast and torpedoes the U.S. submarine, killing its commander Captain Dahlgren (Bill Paxton of "A Simple Plan"), Coonan, and most of the remaining German and American crews. All that is left is the crippled U-571. Somehow, the remaining sailors have to get the Enigma code device safely into Allied hands. Not only that, but they can't let German High Command know they have it, or they'll change the code.

The untested Lt. Andrew Tyler (Matthew McConaughey of "EdTv") and what is left of his crew have to figure out how to operate and repair the German sub in a hurry. Luckily, there's a mechanic named Tank on board (played by Dave Power) and a couple of guys who can read German. There's the obligatory wise old sailor who was in World War I and knows everything, Chief Klough (Harvey Keitel of "Copland"), a cook, Eddie, (Terrence 'T.C.' Carson of the TV series "Living Single") who ends up steering the sub, and a rock and roll star, Jon Bon Jovi (who has appeared in several movies, including "Moonlight and Valentino"). He plays Lt. Pete Emmett.

The special effects are pretty good and the scenes inside the submarine are convincing. Where the movie falls apart is that we never get to know most of the characters. Since we don't know them, it is hard to keep track of them, or care about them when their lives are in danger during the depth charge scenes. It ruins the suspense. The only character we really get to know is Tyler, and he's not that interesting.

This group of men on the submarine never really seems to be a crew. There is constant dissension, bickering, and questioning of orders. Sometimes there is near-mutiny on board. This is unbelievable on a submarine, one of the most elite of all Navy assignments. The crews are top notch and they obey orders. Since they don't seem to be a crew, just a bunch of individuals thrown together, it is hard to take them seriously.

The battle sequences are pretty good, however, with fairly convincing tactics and special effects as the subs and the ships on the surface play their cat and mouse games. The idea of men pushing machines to the limits of technical possibility in order to survive is nothing new, but it still makes for compelling drama. This film rates a C+.

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