Das Boot (1982)

Overrated

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This anti war movie comes from Germany, that has had to learn the anti war lesson well, though they seem to be forgetting it recently. But this is a powerful movie, true classic and a must see movie.

In October 1941, the German Capt.-Lt. Henrich Lehmann-Willenbrock (Jürgen Prochnow) of the U-96 U-Boat receives the war correspondent Lt. Werner (Herbert Grönemeyer) to cover the work in the submarine during their mission in the Atlantic Ocean. They sail out of the shipyard La Rochelle and along the next weeks, Werner learns the lives, loves, fear and behavior of the young crew, the veteran Captain and his officers. The skilled captain hunts British vessels to sink and dives to depths below the limit of the boat to escape from the destroyers. Near Christmas, they plan to return to La Rochelle; but out of the blue, Captain Henrich receives an order to cross the Strait of Gibraltar to go to Italy. But the captain knows how protected the area is and plans a means to lure the British Navy. Will the U-96 succeed in crossing the Strait of Gibraltar?"Das Boot" is a German masterpiece by Wolfgang Petersen with 2h 29 min. The "Superbit" director's cut on DVD with one additional hour is a supreme masterpiece of a war (or anti-war) film. It is impressive how a 3h 29 min film is never boring, keeping the viewer on the edge of his or her seat until the very ending. The claustrophobic and tense story increases the drama and the character development in this version, becoming one of the best movies in the cinema history. The German captain, officers and crew are not shown as one-dimension character or sad killing machine like in many war films, but as human beings with families and friends, very efficient in their works but with fear and other feelings. My vote is ten.Title (Brazil): "O Barco: Inferno no Mar" ("The Boat: Hell in the Sea")

Wolfgang Petersen did something I felt was impossible... I actually found myself kind of rooting for the Germans in this WWII set film. Great performances from all of the cast and it is good to see that even the enemy is just doing what they also think is right. A must see. Must. Must. Must. Must. Must.

Das boot, a movie, which its shape mostly about thrill. Its main focus was to thrill the audiences implicitly. There is something classy about Das Boot, yeah, its thrilling concept. It thrills the audience in a unique way, not by scary scores or back-sound or surprising music, nor by cool action schemes supported by cool CGI, nor scary art-direction make-up or set decoration. Das boots thrill is about emotion and tension. Emotions about hopeless, the powerless crews who got stuck by the tension of sea war and trapped in their only self-saver tool, a submarine. The only option about dying or surviving is the main uplifting aspect to the thrills. Every new rising action or climax scenes begin, they always fall for those 2 option, whether they saves the day or sinking to death. One more good aspect is, Das Boot play and brings its thrill really slow. Sometimes they cut from the outside to the inside as the thrills begin to grow the thrill into audiences slowly. Cameras set piece to shot the tension and emotion of crew really precise. The editing seems incredibly accurate. We also can't forget the realistic impact sounds which erupt scenes, nice work by sound-effect team.When i first watch Das Boot, i realize that i never feel so much thrill before and this movie set my new standard to thrill genre. They play in one set place only (submarine) most of its duration, but the layer of its thrill is so deep which that was hard things to do as a director. Das Boot is at top tier of thrill genre movies.