Men Of Honour Details

2000

Rated:
70
from 5972 members

Starring	Robert De Niro, Cuba Gooding Jr., Charlize Theron, Powers Boothe
Director	George Tillman Jr
Genres	Drama

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Men Of Honour

A heroic life gets a suitably dramatic retelling in George Tillman Jr.'s docudrama MEN OF HONOR. Based on the true story of Carl Brashear, the first African American to become a United States Navy master diver, the film follows the conventional yet pleasurable against-all-odds narrative. Carl Brashear (played with noble grace by Cuba Gooding Jr.) is the son of a degraded southern sharecropper. Determined to succeed in the vocation he believes he was born for, Brashear enlists in the navy. Once there, however, the determined young man finds his dream inaccessible--thwarted by the antagonistic forces of institutional and personal racism. When, after a long and difficult struggle, he is finally allowed into diving school, he finds himself under the authority of Billy Sunday (Robert De Niro). A former master diver whose injured lung has left him permanently above water, Sunday simultaneously becomes Brashear's most vicious adversary and most loyal supporter, motivating him to succeed. The story that follows is a highly emotional wave of ups and downs--Brashear unbelievably overcomes one barrier only to be met by the next, even larger one. MEN OF HONOR is at times heartbreaking and painful to watch, but the triumphant ending makes for a deeply satisfying payoff.

Starring	Robert De Niro, Cuba Gooding Jr., Charlize Theron, Powers Boothe, Michael Rapaport, Hal Holbrook, Holt McCallany, David Keith
Director	George Tillman Jr
Studio	20TH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Run time	DVD: 2 hrs 3 mins Blu-ray: 2 hrs 3 mins
Certificate
Genres	Drama
Language	DVD: English Blu-ray: English
Hearing-impaired	English
Subtitles	DVD: Czech, Danish, English, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish Blu-ray: French, German, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish
Released	DVD: 21 Jan 2002 Blu-ray: 09 Apr 2007 Production year: 2000
Format	DVD

Critics' reviews (6) of Men Of Honour
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This earnest but enjoyable naval extravaganza is based on the experiences of Carl Brashear, who joined the US Navy in the late 1940s, just as segregation was abolished. In George Tillman Jr's film, Brashear (played by Cuba Gooding Jr) sets his sights on becoming the first African-American deep-sea navy diver. Sent to boot camp, he finds himself under the strict regime of hostile diving master Billy Sunday (Robert De Niro), and so begins a long struggle to win respect and achieve his goal. There are some spectacular underwater sequences, but they tend to overshadow the performances of both leads.
- Radio Times
- Posted 29 Jan 2006
"...Cuba Gooding Jr. [gets to] flex both physical and acting muscles for once....De Niro cagily crafts Sunday, a composite character, into a memorable and complex creation..."
- USA Today
- Posted 11 Mar 2005
Most helpful member's review of Men Of Honour
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7 out of 11 people found this review helpful

Nobody goes down like cookie.

White folk are mostly pigs, whereas black guys on the other hand are mostly downtrodden, morally and intellectually superior beings who have to work 100 times harder than those namby-pamby milksops from Northern Europe to get one tenth of the recognition they deserve. Does this sound familiar? Yes it is another one of those 'positive discrimination' films designed to increase the number of black heroes out there and encourage far more African-Americans males to turn their attention away from slapping their hoes and towards winning Nobel prizes and saving the planet. If you can get past the embarrassing attempt to improve the image of black men that comes into play every time they are cast as supreme court judges, computer whiz-kids, or even God (Bruce Almighty), then what we have here is a rather well-made film with a rather likeable leading character who is going to make the best of the cards that life has dealt him. He may only be a navy diver (not a black Mozart or Anna Friel) but few could argue that he doesn?t possess heroic qualities (def of hero: one who doesn?t pause to think, usually resulting in lifelong debilitating injuries and a clear conscience), but what the hells wrong with being a cookie? My dad was a cookie in the army and he came out with both legs intact and a useful skill to use in civilian life (his corned beef hash is quite exceptional). One thing about this film that I really hated though was the bit where he got his lines snagged on a Russian submarine and survived?come off it, there?s more chance of an albino winning the hundred metres at the next Olympic games!
- - Martin Luther King from God's kitchen.
  - Posted 08 Sep 2004 10:12
Most recent members' review of Men Of Honour
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1 out of 1 person found this review helpful

Good film

I forgot that I'd seen this film before, but I did enjoy watching it over again, this is not something that I can say about many films.
- - KDP from Lancashire England
  - Posted 05 Mar 2005 19:34
News and features
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Notorious: George Tillman Jr interview
- 13 Feb 2009
In 1997, at the age of 24, Christopher “Biggie Smalls” Wallace was set to become one of the biggest selling rap artists of all time with the release of his second album, Life After Death. However, just 15 days before it went on sale, he was gunned down on the streets of Los Angeles. Now, 12 years later, his mother Voletta Wallace and his record producer Sean "Puffy" Combs have come together to produce Notorious, the official biopic of Biggie's life. It fell to long-time fan George... Read more
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