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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2748 in DVD
• Released on: 1997-12-10
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: German, English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 209 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
This is the restored, 209-minute director's cut of Wolfgang Petersen's harrowing and claustrophobic U-boat thriller, which was theatrically rereleased in 1997. Originally made as a five-hour miniseries, this version devotes more time to getting to know the crew before they and their stoic captain (Jürgen Prochnow) get aboard their U-boat and find themselves stranded at the bottom of the sea. Das Boot puts you inside that submerged vessel and explores the physical and emotional tensions of the situation with a vivid, terrifying realism that few movies can match. As Petersen tightens the screws and the submerged ship blows bolts, the pressure builds to such unbearable levels that you may be tempted to escape for a nice walk on solid land in the great outdoors--only you wouldn't dream of looking away from the screen. --Jim Emerson

Amazon.com
This 282-minute version of Das Boot is the full-length TV series, originally shown in six parts but here edited into a seamless whole. Director Wolfgang Petersen has since graduated to mega-budget Hollywood productions (2004's Troy for example), but has never managed to even come close to this, his German-language masterpiece. Petersen and his sterling cast (including Jürgen Prochnow in his best role as the U-boat Captain) went to great lengths to ensure that this claustrophobic depiction of life aboard the German sub U-97 while attacking British convoys in the Atlantic is thoroughly authentic, and totally convincing. Even the set itself, which is a replica of a U-boat interior, had no false walls, so all camera angles are necessarily from within its horribly narrow, overcrowded and sweaty confines. The result is certainly the finest submarine drama ever made, and one of the most compelling depictions of the physical, psychological and emotional effects of warfare.

This miniseries is rather longer than the movie version, which is also available on DVD in a director's cut version. The differences are not in matters of plot, but in the pacing: everything here takes longer to happen, while the crew must sit around, bicker, swear, and sweat it out--the agonizing searching for action, the tension of the attack, the terrible stress of hiding from enemy destroyers. Everything unfolds as if in real time, which is the great advantage a TV production has over a movie (contrast, for example, Band of Brothers with Saving Private Ryan). This, therefore, is the definitive presentation of a World War II classic. --Mark Walker

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Customer Reviews

A "real" war movie
One of the few films about war that is realistic. The viewer can feel the tension and the fear and enjoy the occasional moments of humor. When the action moves onto the submarine, you can almost smell the sweat, the spoiled food, the diesel fuel. I am not normally a big fan of war movies, but this doesn't feel like a movie it feels like real life. There is no "Hollywood" here.

Deserves A Sixth Star
There isn't much to add to what's been said about Das Boot, because the acclaim this motion picture has gathered over nearly thirty years speaks loudly enough. I will note that Das Boot is not only the greatest movie about naval warfare that's ever been made, it ranks as one of film's most intense portraits of human psychology. I don't care how anti-German a person might be in his or her feelings about the Second World War, I guarantee anyone possessing common humanity will quickly bond with this U-boat's crew and be pulling with all his or her might in hope of their survival in the brutal crucible of mechanized war. Just as it has validly been said Stanley Kubrick achieved the impossible in 2001: A Space Odyssey and compelled audiences to suspend disbelief long enough to forget they were not actually watching a mission taking place in deep space, so viewers quickly set aside the fact that Das Boot was shot inside a set, albeit one that recreated a German submarine down to the tiniest detail. Das Boot radiates authenticity and not only suspends all disbelief as to the reality of what one is seeing, it obliterates it. A fine motion picture by any scale, though not for one second for the faint of heart.

best sub film ever
This is simply the best submarine film. And for fans of Das Boot, this uncut version does some good. Lets you really think about life for these people during that time. A good film should do that. A good film should let you get lost in the story and the period of that time.

This uncut version of nearly 5 hours is a treat, and it goes by so fast that the only thing you notice while immersed into the storyline is that you have to get up to change the DVD's in the player.

After it is all done you start to wonder when are the movie people going to remake their movies in-dept and longer for the DVD's? But then you realize that it works for THIS film because it's so good, and it may or may not work for other films.

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