ARE 'U' READY? ACTORS PREPARED FOR PHYSICALITY OF FILM BUT NOT HISTORICAL CRITICISMS.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

In the wake of ``Saving Private Ryan's'' box-office success stems ``U-571,'' the first of doubtless many films celebrating the World War II Allies' bravery and sacrifices.

But this classically imagined submarine thriller, in which a group of American sailors hijack a disabled German U-boat in order to capture its code-encrypting device, almost caused the biggest rift between wartime partners since Stalin dropped the Iron Curtain. Compared to the firestorm the project triggered in the British press, star Matthew McConaughey's absurd misadventure with bongos and lawmen last autumn was a mere tempest in a tabloid teapot.

Even though writer-director Jonathan Mostow (``Breakdown'') went to unparalleled logistical and engineering lengths to create a ``you are there'' sense of life on and under the Atlantic in 1942 - both the filmmaker and the large cast, which also includes Bill Paxton, Harvey Keitel and Jon Bon Jovi, invoke the great 1981 German film ``Das Boot'' as their authenticity inspiration - he made the somewhat perverse decision to actually refer to the code thingie as an Enigma machine.

Mostow well knew that it was a Royal Navy party that clandestinely seized the first Enigma device in May 1941 - half a year before the United States entered the war - and for the duration led the way in eavesdropping on what the Nazis thought were secret communications. While ``U-571'' does not claim to be even as factual as the fictitious ``Private Ryan,'' word of this plotline naturally made aged British veterans, who generally nurture a healthy competitiveness with their Yank comrades over who contributed most to the war effort, feel rather less than honored.

``As corny as this sounds, I made this movie with respect and love in my heart for the men who fought on submarines in World War II,'' says Mostow. ``The last thing I would ever want would be to be perceived as trying to infringe on somebody's glory or the credit for somebody's accomplishments. But I felt that the Enigma was fair game as a MacGuffin (a term for the item, coined by English director Alfred Hitchcock, that the characters in a movie care inordinately about). And this is clearly a work of fiction. To mention another submarine movie, no one says about 'The Hunt for Red October,' wait a second, the Russians never defected a sub.''

While McConaughey agrees with Mostow's basic defense, like the director he was obsessed with locating as much heroic realism in his work as possible. ``I can understand better, see reasons and motive behind a character, if it's something based in reality,'' says the charismatic Texan, who's done his share of controversial historical films (``Amistad,'' ``The Newton Boys'') between more fanciful hits (``Contact,'' ``A Time to Kill''). ``This was based in World War II. Is it fiction, is it a yarn? Yes. But you can't conjure up any more extreme circumstances than what these guys were under in that environment, in a submarine facing depth charges, depth pressure, torpedoes and destroyers.

``There are few times in our history that you can go back to and just put the straight dope on, that's enough,'' McConaughey adds. ``I mean, the stakes don't get any higher than the reality of this. So we don't need space ships and lasers and dragons. But today, of course, there are lots of things, like improved sound and special effects, that up that drama.''

Indeed. Filmed early last year in Rome and on and around the island of Malta in the Mediterranean, the production boasted one full-size, 600-ton, seagoing replica of a type VII German U-boat that could do everything but dive (``except once,'' jokes Mostow); two other full-size mock-ups that were used for scenes shot in a gigantic outdoor water tank; the largest rain towers ever used in a film, which sprinkled 15,000 gallons of seawater per minute on the cold, soaked actors (there was not a big enough supply of fresh water to be found).

Naturally, after months of this kind of work, some cast members began wondering about their mission.

``Believe me, I was out in that tank more than one night going, 'I'm already rich and famous, why am I rowing this lifeboat?' '' reveals Bon Jovi, the rock music superstar who's been steadily building an acting career from the bottom up. `` 'Get the stunt rower in here!' ''

But, according to Mostow, there was no serious complaining and definitely no star trips among the players, who all understood that their discomfort could not begin to approximate what real submariners suffered during the war.

There was also the example set by two real submariners, who acted as technical advisers during the production. One incident gave the actors an object lesson in just what kind of men it took to fight in the leaky, cramped and constantly at-risk vessels.

``I took Vice Adm. Patrick Hannifin and a German U-boat captain, these two men who had been bitter enemies six decades ago, out to dinner with a couple of the guys,'' Bon Jovi recalls. ``We didn't know how they were going to get along. But for some reason, they related to each other like buddies or brothers because they'd had this experience and respect for each other. We had to really pay attention to that.''

Obviously, anything more than basic bellyaching was not an option.

``There were questions along the way, not only to me but to all of the actors, along the lines of, 'Man, when are you gonna break?' '' McConaughey notes. ``But I just didn't want to hear about it. There was no question; no one was ever gonna break, no one was gonna be a crybaby, we knew what we were getting in for. Now, if you want to talk about having a hard time, think about the guys that were really there, period. What we were out there doing in our re-creation was a luxury; it was nothing in comparison.''

One other engineering marvel also provided relative luxury for cast and crew. The production installed what was referred to as the Ferrari of gimbals inside a giant, floodable tank in Europe's largest soundstage at Rome's Cinecitta Studios. Sections of submarine interiors could be placed on the agile platform by crane, where they could then be tilted, shaken and otherwise moved at whatever angles and speeds the scene called for. Parts of the sub walls could also be removed to permit long-lens camerawork - and to give the more claustrophobic cast members some breathing room.

``It's the largest and most sophisticated gimbal that's ever been built in the world,'' Mostow says. ``It was so big that, one day, I was walking into the studio and I saw 100 55-gallon drums sitting outside the soundstage. A guy told me, 'Oh, that's the hydraulic fluid for the gimbal.' The even more amazing thing was that it was silent in its operation. And it was all controlled from this one little box with a little joystick, by this Italian guy in a beret with a cigarette dangling from his lips. Someone would tell him to do something in Italian and, all of a sudden, this whole huge thing would go pow! - like it had just been hit by a big depth-charge attack.''

And there are a lot of those, all accompanied by nerve-rattling, state- of-the-art sonic assaults. Whether or not a different kind of explosion - a bad PR blitz - is awaiting the film in England remains to be seen. The finished film ends with titles acknowledging the initial British raid and several others that resulted in captured Enigmas and other Axis coding devices.

It may well not be enough, but Mostow is at least personally satisfied with one pre-emptive strike. When the first protests about the project were voiced during its production, the director sought out Lt. Cmdr. David Balme, who led the boarding party onto the U-110 that captured the first Engima machine in 1941.

``I just cold-called him one day,'' Mostow says. ``He was upset about it, but I explained to him what we were trying to do and told him that I had nothing to hide from him. I brought him down to Malta, showed him everything - the script, the whole thing. Then, when the movie was done, I did something that maybe made the studio nervous: I invited him to see the movie. If he'd had a problem with it, it would've been bad P.R. for us. But he loved it.''

Really? Entirely? Or does something need to be decoded here?

``Well, at the end of it, Lt. Balme turned to me and said, 'Jolly good, although I don't remember the war being quite so noisy,' '' Mostow admits.

IN RETROSPECT ... IT WAS FUNNY

It wasn't as heroic as commanding a battered submarine under constant attack. In fact, it was downright embarrassing.

But Matthew McConaughey is bravely trying to laugh off his arrest last October, in which police responding to a noise complaint entered the actor's Austin, Texas, home after observing him through a window playing bongos in the nude.

``There's a difference in making a joke out of something and having a sense of humor about it,'' the tall, 30-year-old Texan notes. ``It happened and I got a sense of humor about it, man. It made it easier coming out of jail the first time, going, 'You know what, Matthew? I can't figure out anything wrong you did. It's all right. You've done it before and you'll do it again. If everyone can't see the absurdity of this then I don't want to know them anyway.' I just want to keep it simple. I think everyone kind of agrees it's just ... silly.''

McConaughey was cuffed for telling the officers to get out of his house and charged with drug paraphernalia possession and resisting transportation. The drug charge was dropped almost immediately and the resisting one a few weeks later, when McConaughey agreed to pay a $50 fine for the noise violation.

But as absurd as the whole situation obviously was, the actor can't help but feel a little violated himself.

``The fact is, how did we get from a class-C noise infraction into jail cuffed?'' he asks rhetorically. ``Even the judge - and I think everybody, when they stop and think about it after the humor - has to go, 'Wait a minute? They came in your house?' No, that's not right, that's not how anything needs to run.

``I'm not against the blue and I don't want anyone to be against them, man,'' he says. ``We need law and order. But there was a place where this one person got out of line.''

- Bob Strauss

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) T.C. Carson, left, Will Estes, Matthew McConaughey (standing) and Thomas Guiry.

(2) Thomas Guiry, left, Jack Noseworthy, Matthew McConaughey and Jake Weber co-star in ``U-571.''

(3) Matthew McConaughey can laugh about his arrest now.

Jim Cooper/Associated Press

Box: IN RETROSPECT, IT WAS FUNNY (see text)