Das Boot Review

Petersen's key decision was spatial. Jost Vacano strapped himself into a gyro-stabilized handheld rig and ran the full length of the U-96 set, so every crash dive is one continuous sprint past bunks, valves and men bracing, and the audience learns the boat's geography the way the crew does, by body. The dread is metallurgical: depth gauges creeping, rivets shearing off the hull and ricocheting through the compartment like gunfire, the sonar ping that arrives before the destroyer does.

Jurgen Prochnow plays the Kaleun as a professional who stopped believing years ago and keeps the belief running for the boys anyway, and the crew are mostly types rather than characters, which the running time partly excuses. Klaus Doldinger's pulsing theme is used sparingly enough to still work. What distinguishes it from every other submarine film is the ratio, hours of stink and tedium purchasing minutes of terror, and the theatrical cut compresses exactly the material that makes that ratio land. The Gibraltar run and the final dockside reversal are as bleak an ending as the genre has produced.