Men Of Honor (Blu-ray)

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Movie reviewed by John J. Puccio; Video/Audio/Extras reviewed by James Plath

What do two such seemingly dissimilar films as Fox´s "Men of Honor" and "Disney´s The Kid" have in common? Both stories lead you scene by scene through script pages of the wholly expected. This is not to suggest that either film is without merit. Sometimes we only want the expected. But only sometimes. Not this time. Not now. "Men of Honor" is an old-fashioned, heart-tugging true story that could easily be described as pure hokum if most of it didn´t really happen. And even knowing that a lot of it did actually happen doesn´t help much. With the exception of the performances of its two principal players, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Robert De Niro, "Men of Honor" could easily pass for an A&E Biography Special.

Based on the life of Carl Brashear (Gooding), the movie tells of the first African-American to become a U.S. Navy diver and the first amputee in Navy history to return to full active duty. On paper I´m sure Brashear´s tale appeared to make a heroic and inspirational movie, yet the finished product is presented with so much melodrama and with such insufferable earnestness, it comes dangerously close to imitating a Saturday-morning cliffhanger, a weekday-afternoon soap opera, and the six o´clock news.

It all begins in the late 1940s when Brashear, the son of poor sharecroppers, decides to join the Navy. One of his first experiences with the service is to witness the daring rescue of a downed seaman by Master Chief Diver Billy Sunday (De Niro), a feat that results in an injury to Sunday that renders him unable ever to dive again. However, the affair influences Brashear to become a Navy diver himself. The problem was that at that time the Navy was just being desegregated, and racial bigotry was still widespread. The Navy had never before accepted an African-American into their elite search-and-rescue unit, and they weren´t about to start. But Brashear persists and wins entrance into the Navy´s diving school, a place where he coincidentally finds Master Chief Sunday as his instructor. While Gooding plays Brashear as entirely virtuous and loyal, an upright Boy Scout, De Niro plays Sunday as a loudmouthed, hard-nosed, racist tough guy with a beautiful young wife (Charlize Theron) and practically no friends. De Niro looks and sounds, in other words, like his character in "Cape Fear." Needless to say, Brashear and Sunday do not hit it off, and needless to say, Gooding is upstaged by De Niro most of the time, almost shifting the focus of the film´s attention to the wrong man. Matters are complicated further by the training facility´s daft old commander, Mr. Pappy (Hall Holbrook), who is even more determined than Sunday not to let a black man enter the corps.

You see where this is going, don´t you? As anticipated, Brashear passes his tests after many harsh ordeals, in the course of which he meets, falls in love with, and marries a medical student (Aunjanue Ellis), plus wins the grudging admiration of Sunday. From the time he enters the diving school, Brashear determines one day to become a Master Chief Diver, the highest rank a noncommissioned officer can attain. And nothing is about to stop him--not the prejudice of his fellow sailors, not a monumental series of disasters, not the loss of a limb, not even a macho breath-holding contest in a local bar.