Men of Honor

Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Infobox film/short description Men of Honor (released in the UK and Ireland as Men of Honour) is a 2000 American drama film directed by George Tillman Jr. and starring Robert De Niro and Cuba Gooding Jr. The film is inspired by the true story of Master Chief Petty Officer Carl Brashear, the first African American master diver in the United States Navy.

Plot

Carl Brashear leaves his native Kentucky and the life of a sharecropper in 1949 by joining the United States Navy. Carl promised his father that he would never quit and would fight for what he wants. As a crew member of the salvage ship USS Hoist, where he is assigned to the galley, he is inspired by the bravery of Master Chief Petty Officer Leslie William "Billy" Sunday, who free-dives to rescue a diver knocked overboard without an air line.

Sunday develops an air embolism that prevents him from diving without a fatal risk. Brashear is determined to become the first Black American Navy diver, proclaiming that he will eventually qualify as a master diver. He is allowed to attend Diving and Salvage School in Bayonne, New Jersey, at which Master Chief Sunday is the head instructor. Sunday is under orders from the school's bigoted commanding officer Mr. Pappy to ensure that Brashear fails. The other students, led by Dylan Rourke, refuse to bunk with Brashear.

Brashear struggles to overcome his educational shortcomings, a result of leaving school in the seventh grade to work on his family's farm. He receives assistance from Jo, a female medical student who works part-time in the New York Public Library. Brashear proves to be a diver by rescuing a fellow student when the student's dive partner Rourke abandons him to die during a salvage exercise gone wrong. At Mr. Pappy's instruction, Rourke is awarded a medal, taking credit for Brashear's actions.

After learning that his father has died, Brashear encounters Sunday and the rest of the class at a bar. When Sunday asks Brashear if he thinks that he is better than him, the two don diving gear that fills with water to see who can hold his breath longer. After four minutes, Sunday's nose starts to bleed and the students drain his suit, leaving Brashear as the winner.

For their final evaluation, each student must assemble a flange underwater using a bag of tools. At Mr. Pappy's direction, Brashear's bag is cut open to impede his passing. Brashear must take time to locate and gather his tools as the water temperature drops. Hours after the other students have finished, Brashear completes the assembly and graduates from diving school. Sunday is soon demoted to senior chief by Mr. Pappy for allowing Brashear to pass.

The paths and careers of Brashear and Sunday diverge. Sunday continually loses his composure around officers who disrespect his accomplishments until he is eventually demoted to chief petty officer and relegated to menial duties. Brashear marries Jo and rises quickly through the ranks, becoming a national hero in the 1966 Palomares incident for evading a Soviet submarine, recovering a missing hydrogen bomb and severing his left leg below the knee while saving the lives of Navy crewmen. Brashear feels that his only chance to return to active duty and a relatively normal life is for the leg to be amputated and replaced with a prosthesis. Until this time, no Navy man had ever returned to full active duty with a prosthetic limb.

Brashear reunites with Sunday, who helps him train to fight the Navy's bureaucracy and the antagonistic Captain Hanks (Brashear's and Sunday's former Hoist executive officer) to return to full active duty and fulfil his dream of becoming a master diver. After Brashear passes his readiness evaluation, his reinstatement hearing is held before the Chief of Naval Personnel in Washington, D.C. Hanks introduces the latest Navy technology, a 290-pound copper diving suit, and tells Brashear that he must walk 12 steps to qualify for reinstatement. Brashear stands and takes all 12 steps with stern encouragement from Sunday. On completion, Hanks declares that Brashear is reinstated to full active duty.

Brashear becomes a master diver two years later, and was active for an additional nine years.

Cast

File:Brashear Gooding.jpg

Carl Brashear (center) received an Outstanding Public Service Award in October 2000 from actor Cuba Gooding Jr. and then-Defense Secretary William Cohen for 42 years of combined military and federal civilian service. Gooding portrayed Brashear in the 2000 film Men of Honor.

File:MenofHonorTietalDeNiroSmithSept08.jpg

Producer Robert Teitel, Robert De Niro, and screenwriter Scott Smith in September 2008

• Robert De Niro as Master Chief Leslie "Billy" Sunday (based on Boatswain's Mate First Class Harry M. Rutherford)
• Cuba Gooding Jr. as Boatswain's Mate Second Class (later Master Diver) Carl Brashear
  • Chris Warren Jr. as Young Carl
• Charlize Theron as Gwen Sunday
• Aunjanue Ellis as Jo Brashear
• Hal Holbrook as Camp Commanding Officer "Mr. Pappy" Captain USN.
• Michael Rapaport as Gunners Mate Snowhill, Brashear's barracks mate.
• Powers Boothe as Captain Pullman
• David Keith as Captain Hartigan
• Holt McCallany as Machinist's Mate First Class Dylan Rourke
• David Conrad as Captain Hanks
• Joshua Leonard as Petty Officer Second Class Timothy Douglas Isert
• Carl Lumbly as Mac Brashear, Carl's Father
• Lonette McKee as Ella Brashear, Carl's mother
• Glynn Turman as Chief Floyd
• Joshua Feinman as DuBoyce
• Lindsay Thomas as Girl in Bar

Production

The film features the classic US Navy Mark V diving equipment used by the Navy from 1915 until 1985. The custom equipment was made by DESCO, which, along with three other makers, manufactured the gear for the Navy. The helmets used were actually commercial helmets (which have larger glass windows or "lights") on Navy breast plates, allowing greater visibility of the actors. The divers wore equipment weighing about .

Reception

The film opened in third place at the North American box office behind Little Nicky and Charlie's Angels, which was on its second week at the top spot.

Men of Honor was met with mixed reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, it currently has an approval rating of 42%, based on 106 reviews, with an average rating of 5.3/10. The critics consensus states, "De Niro and Gooding Jr. manage to turn in performances that make this by-the-numbers inspirational movie watchable." According to Metacritic, which compiled 30 reviews and calculated a weighted average score of 56 out of 100, the film received "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on a scale of A+ to F.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, calling it "an old-fashioned biopic", but criticized Theron's appearance in the film, calling it "professional but unnecessary to the picture".

Historical accuracy

While the film portrays a Wisconsin recruit as the only white recruit to remain in Carl Brashear's bunk, the actual individual was a Brazilian diver named Alberto José do Nascimento, who was also dark-skinned. Alberto also helped Brashear save a fellow recruit who was trapped underwater during a training exercise.

Additionally, Leslie Sunday is depicted as being a Master Chief at the beginning of the film in the late 1940s. However, the rank of Master Chief Petty Officer was created by Congress in 1958. In the film's period, Sunday would have been a Chief Petty Officer.

Soundtrack

Mark Isham's soundtrack album was released in 2000.

External links

• Template:AFI film
• at IMDbTemplate:EditAtWikidataTemplate:WikidataCheck
• Men of Honor at Rotten TomatoesTemplate:WikidataCheck
• Men of Honor at Box Office Mojo