A U-boat captain is constantly playing a game of cat and mouse with the destroyers and it means he has to take decisions that could end a lot of lives.Įver since I saw The Hunt for Red October (starring Sean Connery) I’ve been a big fan of movies with submarines in them. Their long journey shows that it’s not all glory and that life under water also can be filthy, frightening and desperate. They are full of hope and looking forward into fighting the English. As a viewer you join 42 young men as they first set foot on this submarine. I heard amazing stories about this film, but because of its length (close to 5 hours) I never made the time to sit down for it, until recently.įor those who have never heard of this, Das Boot shows what it was like to work on a German U-boat during the second World War. Some movies have been in it for years and Das Boot was one of them. Effective as an anti-war movie and as thrilling as any disaster flick, Das Boot is a humanistic masterpiece.My stack of of DVDs that I still have to watch has been big for ages. It's also got a lot to say about military leaders - with zero respect shown for Nazi high command who are living like kings on boats with exotic banquets, while the regular military personnel are struggling against seemingly unwinnable odds. Heartbreak and horror are what to expect in this masterful movie that ratchets up the tension continually for its three-and-a-half-hour runtime. As the boat's captain, Jürgen Prochnow strikes the perfect balance between a commander following orders and a man sympathetic to the plight of his young crew and, in one heartbreaking scene, even enemy soldiers. Now these 50, mostly, very young men who are crammed into a cramped, smelly submarine, have to keep their nerve amid great danger. baddies, Das Boot excels at creating three-dimensional characters, who each have their "normal" lives wrenched from them by the outbreak of war. More a horror movie than a gung-ho war film, this excellent WWII drama's focus is very much on the human element of war. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails. There are two instances of male characters displaying their naked buttocks - one during an emergency when a man runs out of the bathroom, and the other when a medic inspects a man's genitals for pubic lice. This includes men grabbing a scantily clad cabaret dancer and urinating on Captain Lehmann-Willenbrock's ( Jürgen Prochnow) car. Infrequent strong language includes "f-k" and "s-t." Before the crew leave on their mission, they spend a raucous night at a nightclub, which features lots of smoking, drinking to excess, and disrespectful behavior. But the commanding Nazi officers setting their orders are shown to be out of touch. The crew are shown as highly competent and display good teamwork. Some battles result in bloody injury and during one battle, enemy soldiers on fire jump into the sea. Sea battles and the subsequent peril focus on the human issues, with strong emotions including panic, fear, and sadness. The movie tells the story of a German u-boat (submarine) mission in 1941 during World War II. Various versions of the movie have been released (as well as a TV series) - this review is of the subtitled 208-minute Director's Cut. Parents need to know that Das Boot is an intense, but superb, Oscar nominated German war movie - based on a 1973 novel - with intense scenes, violence, and strong language.
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