Das Boot

Item: Das Boot
Rating: 9
Author: Christopher Null

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"Extraordinary"

Das Boot Review

By Christopher Null

It's always weird to see the enemy as the good guy, and Das Boot leaps out as probably the greatest example of this up until Schindler's List. This time the Nazis are at sea, faced with the claustrophobia and filth of a German U-Boat, trying to figure out what the hell Hitler is doing back home while they sink English ships in the Atlantic. Its story fraught with peril and its characters full of doubt, this is a far cry from the unbridled patriotism of aw-shucks flicks like U-571. Every sub movie owes a debt to Das Boot (at nearly 3 1/2 hours long, it was originally intended as a TV miniseries) for mastering the genre and setting the bar for its contemporaries.

Facts and Figures

Year: 1981

Run time: 149 mins

In Theaters: Wednesday 10th February 1982

Box Office Worldwide: $85M

Budget: $14M

Distributed by: Columbia Pictures

Production compaines: Bavaria Film, Radiant Film GmbH, Süddeutscher Rundfunk, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), Twin Bros. Productions

Reviews

Contactmusic.com: 4.5 / 5

Rotten Tomatoes: 98%
Fresh: 45 Rotten: 1

IMDB: 8.5 / 10

Cast & Crew

Director: Wolfgang Petersen

Producer: Ortwin Freyermuth, Günter Rohrbach

Screenwriter: Wolfgang Petersen

Starring: Jürgen Prochnow as Kapitän-Leutnant Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, Herbert Grönemeyer as Leutnant Werner, Klaus Wennemann as Der Leitende/Fritz Grade, Hubertus Bengsch as 1WO, Martin Semmelrogge as 2WO, Bernd Tauber as Kriechbaum/Navigator, Erwin Leder as Johann, Martin May as Ullmann, Heinz Hoenig as Hinrich, Uwe Ochsenknecht as Bosun, Claude-Oliver Rudolph as Ario, Jan Fedder as Pilgrim, Ralf Richter as Frenssen, Otto Sander as Phillip Thomsen, Sky du Mont as Leutnant Müller