# Men of Honor (2000)

### reviewed by
Jon Popick

    PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com
    "We Put the SIN in Cinema"

Films based on true stories are unique cinematic animals. To begin with, if the story is popular enough, viewers already know the ending (like Titanic). Even if the tale isn't particularly well-known, studios can ruin a film's finale by having the main character appear on the talk show circuit prior to release, so potential viewers will know he/she doesn't die no matter how much adversity they face in the film (like The Hurricane). And if you've got a problem with the film's story being boring, can you really complain if it's based on actual events? I felt that way about The Perfect Storm and was besieged with e-mail from people accusing me of not feeling sorry enough for the characters – like my review was really damning the crew of the Andrea Gail and their families instead of the film.

Men of Honor was cobbled together with the same cut-rate glue they used to assemble The Perfect Storm. While its central character isn't quite as unlikable as the money-grubbers from the Andrea Gail, the film offers precious little besides a formulaic story, phoned-in performances and button-pushing racial issues calculated to cause white viewers to hang their heads in shame as they drive their SUVs back to the suburbs.

Honor is about Carl Brashear, who is portrayed here by Cuba Gooding Jr. (Chill Factor). The film follows Brashear's life from his family's Sonora, Kentucky dirt farm to a military career during which he became the first black deep-sea diver in U.S. Navy history. Of course, the journey from Point A to Point B is full of adversity, mostly at the hands of the racism Brashear encountered in the ‘60s Navy. He starts his career as a cook on the seas of the South Pacific, of all the horrible things.

After finally clawing his way through two years of training in casseroles and soufflés, Brashear lands at a New Jersey dive and salvage school, which is run by redneck Master Chief Billy Sunday (Robert De Niro, Meet the Parents). Sunday is a drunk with a corncob pipe (but, sadly, no button nose) and has recently been assigned this training position after severely damaging his lungs during a daring dive in the Mediterranean. He immediately takes a dislike to Brashear's hue and makes him work 10 times harder than anybody else in the training program.

The rest of Honor is pretty predictable (aside from a startling and grisly injury to one of the characters). We've already seen countless films where two chest-thumping Alpha males butt heads, and it's not any different here just because it's based on a true story. Honor is slowed down by obligatory romantic threads involving Brashear's Harlem librarian (Aunjanue Ellis, In Too Deep) and Sunday's strange relationship with a beautiful woman played by Charlize Theron (who is making her third feature film appearance in less than a month - The Yards and Bagger Vance).

Honor was the writing debut of Scott Marshall Smith and was directed by George Tillman Jr. (Soul Food). The film features Gooding's best performance since Jerry Maguire, but that's not really saying much if you've seen what he's done lately. The best and most exciting scene is given away in the trailer. It fails to inspire in nearly every way, but does happen to be the second boat film this year to feature David Keith (U-571).

1:20 – R for adult language and graphic violence

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