U-571 (2000) - 45 mistakes

Factual error: The film is set during the war and there is a Toyota forklift driving around in one of the dock scenes....

Factual error: In the ship yard after the party, one of the navy crew is working on a sub and he is using a yellow plastic handled grinder. All tools in this era were metal handled. He's also wearing tennis shoes.

Continuity: In the start of the film Matthew McConaughey is sitting on a porch at a wedding reception smoking a cigar, in one shot he has a stub left then in the next it's a new one.

Continuity: Just after the sub surfaces and the crew arrives on the conning tower, the sub's deck is totally dry.

Factual error: The language the American soldier and the secret-service officer use is grammatically correct German, but the pronunciation is very bad. No born German would ever be fooled by it.

Factual error: The submarine gets buzzed by a single engine German fighter. They are somewhere between the US coast and Greenland. The Germans had no aircraft carriers nor bases in the area. Since it was not a float plane how did the fighter get there? It could not possibly have flown the several thousand miles from continental Europe.

Continuity: During the first mission briefing, the commander is pointing to the map and you can clearly see the top secret photos of the enigma sitting by the manila envelope, but right after that shot he pulls the photos out of the envelope and hands them to people.

Factual error: The "German" airplane which spots the crew before the destroyer scene is actually a Napier Sabre powered Blackburn Firebrand in German markings. The Firebrand was a British aircraft.

Continuity: When the German destroyer is with U-571, look at the ship. Notice in the first shots there are 2 gun turrets on either side. Yet in the later shots during the final battle there's only one turret. In addition, right before the turrets are shown turning to fire, look at the ship again - they are already aimed at the U-boat. I guess the Germans felt the need to do this two times.

Factual error: When the marine commando shows the sailor his "luggage" (the boxes of explosives) to be loaded onto the submarine, some of the boxes have orange Explosive B placards. Those are Dept. of Transportation placards. The D.O.T. didn't exist until 1966 and the placards were not used until later than that.

Factual error: At the beginning of the film the German commander is shown directing an attack using the periscope in the control room. German U-boats had two periscopes: a 'sky' scope (the one in the control room) used exclusively for searching the area directly above the boat prior to surfacing, and the 'attack' periscope located in the conning tower (turm). It was not possible for a German submarine commander to direct an attack from the control room periscope as depicted in the film.

Factual error: Although the type of mission depicted in the movie did occur, it was not Americans that were known to do them. Canadian and British teams were specialized to do this mission.

Audio problem: When they spot the long range plane circling the U boat Mazzola starts yelling saying, "Do something Rabbit." A quick shot later you notice that he is still talking but his mouth is not moving.

Factual error: Shortly after the crew of the S33 are forced to take to the U571 and destroy the German Supply Submarine Tyler announces that they will try to sail to Greenland or Land's End (England). From their mid-Atlantic position they would, therefore, need to sail east. In the next scene the submarine is seen on the surface sailing from left to right across the screen with the sun on the other side of them. Since from the North Atlantic the sun would always be to the south this must mean they are sailing west, away from Greenland and England and towards the United States.

Revealing: When the U-571's crew member starts firing the MG-34 at the survivors in the rowboat, you can see the ammo belt is all blanks.

Continuity: After the melee with the destroyer above the surface, they attempt to dive and travel under the keel of the destroyer to escape the deck guns. As the camera is going underwater, the destroyer can be seen, but when the camera is below the surface, its keel cannot be seen.

Continuity: Just after shooting the radio room on the German destroyer, U-571 submerges so quickly that the sailors do not manage to plug the gun. After a few moments when the boat goes from 180 to 200 meters there is a short shot from the above when we can clearly see that the gun is perfectly plugged.

Factual error: At the beginning of the film the diesel fuel in the German U-boat is shown being ignited by a spark and bursting into flames during the depth charge attack as if it were gasoline. In reality diesel fuel is quite hard to ignite when not compressed and does not burn quite so readily as shown in the film.

Continuity: As the submarine is preparing to leave the dock in one of the movie's first   scenes, Bill Paxton, the commander is standing on the top part of the sub. A seaman is walking in Bill Paxton's direction and the camera is at a distance. As the camera zooms in the man walking should have been in the frame under Mr. Paxton but he just disappeared.

Continuity: When Mazzola is shot in the engine room he takes down the German, first he has hold of the German by the neck, then the collar, then the neck, then the collar again.