Das Boot (1981)
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen
***1/2
This legendary German epic begins with a drunken cabaret meltdown and ends with a sky to ground shoot-em-up. But it's most famous for the three hours in between, when even the threat of a depth charge is enough to break the doldrums. Long before Petersen was shooting American action movies, long before he became a virtual stand-in for almost any other Hollywood director, he made this World War II U-boat epic about a conflicted Captain, his willing and overstressed crew, and the invisible enemy who outsmarts them. Personally, I felt like the "action" scenes (if I can call them that) felt hokey, even for an 80s movie, and that the film was in need of a good trimming. But you've got to hand it to Wolfgang — he knows how to create suspense without the need for a thrilling score or CGI. That's got to be worth something, eh?
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