U-571 (2000)

4 revealing mistakes - chronological order

★★★★★

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Harvey Keitel, Bill Paxton, Thomas Kretschmann, David Keith, Jake Weber, Jon Bon Jovi

Revealing mistake: 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.

Grumpy Scot

Revealing mistake: At the end of the movie, when the aft torpedo blows up the ship, the pieces that fly into the air hit the water and there is no splash. Obviously computer generated.

Revealing mistake: The German destroyer is actually an old converted minesweeper.

Badbird

Revealing mistake: When the German destroyer is hit by the torpedo at the end of the film it is seen to stop dead in the water upon the torpedo impact. In reality momentum would have carried the ship forward some distance after the explosion. A thousand or so tons of steel just does not stop on a dime unless it hits something like a mountainside.

Badbird

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Mistakes

Factual error: When the boarding party are eating dinner on SS-33 before the raid, some of their spanking-new, freshly pressed Kriegsmarine utility uniforms (strange in itself) have breast eagles on the left chest instead of the right. I've never seen any German Wehrmacht uniform with an eagle on the left.

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Quotes

Lt. Commander Mike Dahlgren: Relax gentlemen. She's old... but she'll hold.

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Trivia

Trivia: U-571 cause quite a stir in England especially in the small northern town of Horsforth (where I actually live), because we felt the movie 'Hollywood-ised' a British victory. The people of Horsforth raised an astonishing £241,000 in one week (about £4million today) to fund the building of the HMS Aubretia, the ship that captured the first enigma machine when it depth charged U-110. It caused so much upset amongst people that President Bill Clinton wrote a letter to the people of Horsforth praising the town for their part in the war effort. The letter is now on display in the local museum.

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Questions

Question: Throughout the film you can see that Tank, played by Dave Power, has funny-looking thin black scars on both cheeks. Was this a makeup effect for the character (and if so, why did they do it), or does the actor really have these scars on his cheeks (and if so, what from)?

Answer: The scars you see on Tank's face are fake, pure makeup. They wanted the character to have a gritty look.

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