| Director | Jonathan Mostow |
|---|---|
| Genre | action film, war film |
| Runtime | 111 min |
| Country | France, United States |
| Budget | $62 million |
| Box office | $127 million |
After an attack on a British merchant ship in May 1942, during the Battle of the Atlantic, German U-boat U-571 has her engines badly damaged by depth charges from a British destroyer. With all of her engineers and machinists killed in a flash fire, the sub's commander Kapitänleutnant Günther Wassner transmits a distress call.
Allied intelligence intercepts the distress message and US Navy submarine S-33 is modified to resemble a German resupply U-boat. Their crew is ordered to steal the Enigma machine coding device and sink the U-571. The executive officer of S-33, Lieutenant Tyler, is unhappy that a recommendation for command of his own submarine has been blocked by his commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Dahlgren. The CO feels Tyler can't issue orders without hesitation, a crucial quality Dahlgren feels submarine captains need to have. The crew for the mission includes Lieutenant Hirsch from Naval Intelligence who is fluent in German, Radioman Wentz who is also fluent in German due to undisclosed immigrant parents, and a Marine explosives expert named Coonan.
The S-33 arrives at U-571 during a storm, and sends a boarding party. When Hirsch hesitates to speak in German, Wentz is forced to initiate the conversation, after which the boarding party surprises and overwhelms the Germans. While securing U-571, the American S-33 is torpedoed by a German resupply submarine. Several members of the boarding party, including Coonan, are killed. Dahlgren, adrift and dying, orders Tyler to dive the captured U-boat with the survivors of the boarding party, including crewmen Mazzolla and Trigger. Tyler dives U-571 and destroys the resupply submarine in a torpedo duel.
The men find two survivors from the assault on the U-571: cook Eddie, and Wassner, who disguises himself as an electrician. After the boarding party makes repairs and gets the sub operating again, Tyler routes the disabled submarine toward Land's End. They are spotted by a German reconnaissance plane and Mazzola, dubious of Tyler's leadership, tries to convince the crew to defy Tyler's orders and fire on the plane. Tyler punches Mazzola.
When a German destroyer approaches the submarine, Wassner escapes captivity, sabotages the starboard motor and shoots Mazzola twice. The mortally wounded Mazzola helps Eddie subdue Wassner. The destroyer sends over a whaleboat to the still-surfaced submarine, which opens fire on the destroyer, damaging its radio and preventing it from reporting that the Allies have the Enigma machine. The submarine dives beneath the destroyer, which drops depth charges. Tyler ejects debris and Mazzola's corpse in an attempt to deceive the German ship they've been destroyed. U-571 descends to where it is damaged by high water pressure and must execute an uncontrolled ascent to escape. Wassner is discovered signalling in Morse Code; Hirsch bludgeons him to death but the destroyer has already heard the signal. Tyler orders Trigger to submerge himself in the bilge underwater to repressurize the single remaining torpedo tube, planning to sink the destroyer when the submarine surfaces.
Trigger uses an air hose to breathe inside the flooded compartment and closes the main air valve to the stern tube, but finds a second leaking valve that is out of reach. U-571 surfaces, unable to launch her last torpedo. The pursuing destroyer attacks with her main guns and the hull collapses, pinning Trigger's legs beyond reach of the air hose. He closes the valve before he drowns and Tyler launches the torpedo. The destroyer is unable to evade it and is sunk. The heavily damaged U-571 is abandoned and sinks; the remaining crew is rescued, with the Enigma still in their possession, by a US Navy PBY Catalina flying boat.