Herald rating: * *
Running time: 115 mins
Rental: Now
Review: Ewan McDonald
One of the most enthralling episodes from the Second World War: how the Nazis' Enig-ma machine, which allowed the Germans to control the North Atlantic shipping lanes with its unbreakable codes, was captured in May, 1941, when the British warship HMS
Bulldog took the German submarine U-110.
Two months later U-570, without Enigma, was captured by the Brits' planes and ships before their cryptographers could break into its "brain." Unfortunately this is the American movie version about how their men and their ships did all this in one go.
When a German U-boat is disabled in mid-Atlantic with Enigma on board, commander Dahlgren (Bill Paxton), second-in-command Tyler (Matthew McConaughey) and their men are sent to disguise their US sub as a Nazi vessel, get to the other sub before German rescuers, impersonate Germans, board the sub, grab Enigma and sink the sub. If you like big, dumb war movies ...
