#DAS BOOT TV SERIES REVIEW MOVIE#

The captain and his officers are invited to dine with the officers stationed in Vigo.

It takes place just before they leave Vigo. But as suspenseful as this is, there’s another scene I like even better.

#DAS BOOT TV SERIES REVIEW MOVIE#

The fight for the boat and, ultimately, for their lives, is one of the most gripping scenes in war movie history. The most exciting part is when they have to pass the straits of Gibraltar, get hit and sink rapidly. When they think they can finally return to La Rochelle after a few weeks, they are sent to Vigo in Spain, to resupply, and from there to Italy. They encounter destroyers and are shot at by planes. The second part of the series, is much more action packed. The captain lets them dive occasionally for an hour or two, just to give the men some rest. Most of the time the U-Boot doesn’t dive and in a storm it’s even shaken more badly than many other ships. The worst thing that happens is a three-week storm. The U-Boot gets in the line of fire of a destroyer but other than that it’s relatively quiet. Most of the characters are complex and likable and not exactly Nazis. The first half of the TV series doesn’t do much more than introduce the characters and the daily activities on a U-Boot. After watching this, without ever having been on a U-Boot, you’ll have a good idea of how claustrophobic this must have been and of how helpless the crew must have felt at times. We see a lot of the story through his eyes, and, as usual, when we have a young journalist/writer character like this among the crew, the movie is to some extent about the loss of innocence, the futility of war etc. But that’s the topic of many war movies, what makes Das Boot so outstanding is how carefully it’s been filmed, how accurate it is. He’s a lieutenant but inexperienced in combat, as it seems, and has never been on a U-Boot. This time, they have a war correspondent on board, Lt Werner (played by German singer/songwriter Herbert Grönemeyer). The crew members are mostly young, in their late teens and early twenties, only their captain is thirty years old. They are cheering, singing and looking forward to their mission. I’ve not seen the Director’s Cut, so it’s hard to compare but I really love the slow build-up of this version.ĭas Boot starts in 1941, in La Rochelle. Or, I’d even say, movies don’t get any better than this. I don’t think war movies get any better than this. I’m glad to say that after rewatching it, it’s still among my Top 10, even among my Top 3. When I started this blog I wrote a Top 10 favourite war movies list and Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot was one of them. I can’t believe I didn’t rewatch it earlier.

Das boot tv series review