Fish and Cherries Productions

Das Boot: Director’s Cut is a movie well deserving of all its accolades. However, its greatest enemy is its running time, which clocks in at three and a half hours. The interactions between all the characters were great and I appreciated the sense of camaraderie during wartime, but it was about the halfway point where I realized that I didn’t remember any of their names and that was really distracting for me. They were likable, but after the fifth time I checked my watch, I really wasn’t that invested.

And that’s a shame because the tension aboard the u-boat is really great, especially near the end. I wrote a piece a few months ago about terror coming from people being trapped in environments that will kill them if they’re exposed and this definitely takes advantage of that near the end. People have also commended this film for its accuracy of depicting life and perils serving on a u-boat. I can’t really comment on this because I wasn’t alive when u-boats were in service, but if it’s true, that’s certainly great. Come to think of it, this movie really is a masterful work of art. The only problem here is me. I don’t always have the patience for long movies that move slowly, so who am I to dismiss something just because it doesn’t smash my own personal hurdles? Conclusion: it’s a great movie, just not for me. I’ll probably see it again if other people are watching it, but it’s not one I’ll seek out on my own.