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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 9545
Released: April 10, 2001 |
| Our Price: $7.83 |
| Used Price: $0.97 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
One of those rare films that grabs you by the gut and never lets go, Men of Honor was inspired by the life of Carl Brasher (Cuba Gooding Jr.), an African American who dared to dream of becoming a U.S. Navy Master Diver. Despite a bigoted training officer (Robert DeNiro) and a tragic shipboard accident, Carl never gives up and achieves the impossible in an incredible finish that will leave you cheering.
Description of Men of Honor:
Men of Honor presents a great role model for younger viewers, yet it's rated R due to abundant use of the F word. With appropriate discretion, parents should allow their preteen and teenaged children to see this rousing if altogether conventional biopic inspired by the life of Carl Brashear. Played with gravity and gumption by Cuba Gooding Jr., Brashear was the first African American to become a master diver in the U.S. Navy, despite the lingering effects of segregation, opposition from Navy brass, and the amputation of his left leg following a tragic on-duty accident. Robert De Niro adds marquee value and salty bluster as Billy Sunday, the drunken, redneck (and fictionalized) Master Chief who watches, with gradual admiration, as Brashear attains his ultimate goal through sheer force of will.
This is all quite uplifting on its surface, but in attempting to hit the requisite highlights of an inspiring biography, director George Tillman Jr. (Soul Food) reduces Brashear's achievement to a succession of clichés, forcing Gooding and De Niro to battle sentiment with their noteworthy performances. As Sunday's neglected wife, Charlize Theron is completely extraneous; Hal Holbrook's diving-school commander is a ranting caricature; and newcomer Aunjanue Ellis barely registers as Brashear's wife (in part because their obligatory romance is handled with an utter lack of finesse). There's no question that Brashear's efforts are heroic and worthy of recognition, so Men of Honor serves its basic purpose. Still, one can't help but wonder if Brashear's story would be even more impressive with a more authentic treatment. --Jeff Shannon
Men of Honor Reviews:
Men of Honor--Taking the Plunge 
2009-06-04 - Men of Honor
* *
Cinema Release: November 16, 2000
Rated on a 5-star scale. USA. 129 Minutes. Directed by George Tillman Jr. Written by Scott Marshall Smith. Starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Robert De Niro, Charlize Theron, Aunjanue Ellis, Powers Boothe, Hal Holbrook.
First, start with the true story of an African American man's triumph over the odds of racism and hardship within the then-institutionally racist 1950's American Navy. Next, using creative license, sprinkle on a few stretches of the truth for dramatic effect. The finished product: a riveting, yet fact-based docudrama, right? Wrong. Men of Honor, although it has the best intentions at heart, can't help but fall flat--not because its source material isn't inspiring--but because its execution of this source material is so predictable and chock-full of over-the-top melodrama that one can't help but lose the ability to take Men of Honor and the issues of race it presents seriously.
The film, serving as an account of the life of Master Chief Petty Officer Carl Brashear, the U.S. Navy's first African American Master Diver (and later, the first diver to be reinstated as an amputee), naturally acts as a biopic: it kicks off with a snapshot of Brashear's childhood as the son of a poor sharecropper family in Sonora, Kentucky. Promising his father he will "not end up like him," Brashear leaves his home to join the recently desegregated navy, and later on, with the permission of Captain Pullman (Boothe), the commanding officer of the navy, enrolls in Diving and Salvage school. There, Brashear faces racism and bigotry from his fellow students, diving instructor Chief Billy Sunday (De Niro), and Commanding Officer Mr. Pappy (Holbrook), all determined to see him fail. What ensues is a flurry of "inspirational" segments demonstrating Brashear's determination to overcome any challenges besetting him, eventually leading to the climax of the film--where Brashear, left with one leg due to an accident on ship, has to walk 12 steps in a 290-pound diving suit to prove he is worthy of reinstatement into the navy (by this point, audiences will probably be able predict the film's outcome).
Although a decidedly un-inspirational execution of an otherwise uplifting story, Men of Honor, as a technical film, isn't half bad. First and foremost, performances are stellar--despite mushy scenes such as Brashear's proposal to his wife (where he yells after her in a taxi) and her acceptance (where she jumps out of the taxi and into his arms)--the all-star cast always manages to keep audiences at least a little engaged. Additionally, in spite of criticism for being too boyish for the role, Cuba Gooding Jr.'s young appearance and adolescent voice suits the character rather well--for it is Brashear's child-like optimism, hope, and unabashed defiance towards authority that endears him most to audiences. Next, the film's cinematography, commandeered by Anthony Richmond, employs mellow, subdued colors and plenty of close-up shots--making the film much more reminiscent of soap opera TV than of your run-of-the-mill cinematic epic--however this more realistic-looking style is found to be more suitable for the documentary-element of the film and great for capturing naked, unembellished emotion from actors.
Being a docudrama, the film naturally had its fair share of historical fallacies and dramatizations of the truth: Brashear's on-screen childhood, once undergoing further research, is found to be almost completely fabricated--Brashear is depicted as a single child whose drive behind his dream of being a navy diver is to fulfill his father's wishes for him to live a better life--when in fact Brashear was one of eight children in a loving home whose motivations were not so dramatic; in one interview stating, "I always dreamed of doing something challenging...When I saw the divers for the first time, I knew it was just what I wanted." Furthermore, the brazen manner in which Brashear negotiates with the commanding officer of the navy, Captain Pullman, to enter diving school was also pure fiction; Brashear didn't encounter severe opposition until after he entered diving school. The most disappointing and elaborate invention of the film, however, is the entire character of Master Chief Petty Officer/diving instructor Billy Sunday, played by Robert De Niro, who serves as the main antagonist of the film and opposition to Brashear's dream of becoming a Master Diver himself, and is, frankly the most intriguing character of the film.
All in all, Men of Honor, as stated, is a lackluster take on an otherwise moving true story, injecting its source material with so much melodrama and fluff that one wonders whether or not a successful docudrama can be made without consisting of a minority of distortion instead of a majority. Unless you'd like to be disillusioned with the entire genre, it's recommended you go watch something else.
Men of Honor 
2009-03-30 - Arrive in good shape and in a timely manner. Really enjoy the Blu-Ray format - more bang for the buck as the saying goes!
Incredible Movie
2008-07-26 - "Men of Honor" is an inspiring movie that is based on the actual events of a real-life military hero. What's more, the movie looks spectacular in high definition. I hightly recommend you buy this movie in Blu-Ray format, as it is one movie that will remain timeless and classic for years to come.
We are stepping beyond racial equality
2008-06-30 - An essential film on the history of the US Navy and the integration of the first blacks ... in the kitchens, and then the integration of the first Black as deck personnel and later as US Navy Diver. It was not easy. But we must note that the dedication on the sleeves of the DVD is absurd. It says "History is made by those who break the rules." In fact the ostracism against this first Black diver goes against the rules that come from the Commander in Chief, the President of the US who ordered the integration of US armed forces. In fact some officers who are living in their racist traditions can actually give an order to drown the black diver and this black diver is graduated because the training officer decides to disobey the order from this commanding officer because it goes against his code of honor for which all US soldiers, sailors or pilots or whatever are equal in front of the flag, the national duty and the constitution. History in this case is made by those who decide to disobey orders from bigot officers, in other words to abide by the real constitutional rules. The film is slightly romantic in a way when it shows how this Black man is really doing more than his share of good and courageous acts and is often side-tracked and rejected, even for a medal he actually deserves that is yet given to some other white diver. Effective in its emotionality but yet only emphasizing the human side of things and not the political back-side of them. It sure cracks down on the Washington pencil-pushing bureaucrats who write the rules and regulations of US armed forces though they hardly know what real field courage can be because they never had, nor looked for, the opportunity to meet with a death-bringing mission. It is true that today the racial problem is no longer so much to be accepted when Black as to be respected as having the same stamina, courage and spiritual force as the whites or any human being, in other words we are no longer dealing with tolerating them with a smile but with accepting them as being equal, hence as having the possibility to be better. From toleration to possible superiority.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Men of Honor 
2008-06-19 - This is a great movie with a superb cast. Blu-ray brings it more to life than DVD did.
