Men of Honor

Carl Brashear, whose Navy career is celebrated in the new film "Men of Honor," has led a life worthy of admiration and respect. His father, a Kentucky sharecropper, dreamed of a better life for his son. When Brashear left home to join the Navy, his father told him, "Never quit...be the best." Taking these words to heart, Carl eventually convinces Navy brass to let him become the first black man in the Navy Dive School program. Despite the cruelty of his racist schoolmates and equally racist superiors, he nonetheless managed to graduate from Dive School. Later, he suffered a leg injury that would have sent a normal man home to a quiet retirement. Brashear, never quitting, managed to become proficient enough with a prosthesis to dive again, and convinced the Navy, over their objections, to let him return to active duty He attained the ranks of Master Diver and Master Chief, the highest ranks an enlisted man can attain in the Navy, and he had to work against the Navy all the way to do it.

Apparently, however, what actually happened in Brashear's life wasn't good enough for a movie. As screenwriter Scott Marshall Smith says, "Everyone wanted the script to resonate as much as possible, so as a dramatist I took it up a level." That was a bad idea. The basic stuff of Brashear's life is as dramatic and rousing as anything moviegoers have seen in the last few years, and the cast of "Men of Honor" responds to the material with all the courage and energy one could wish for. However, lazy screenwriting and primary-colors directing undermine what could have and should have been a terrific film.

Because Brashear's life engages broader social issues, director George Tillman Jr. ("Soul Food") apparently felt he had to amp up the drama and the resonance just as much as Smith did. Therefore, Tillman and Smith portray Brashear as someone who has never had a misgiving about anything he has done in his life, and his adversaries as snarling, idiotic racists, who are willfully blind to Brashear's obvious talents. A few of these adversaries were apparently combined to produce the film's pipe-smoking avatar of Southern bigotry named Billy Sunday, who eventually becomes Brashear's biggest advocate because he simply cannot ignore Brashear's talent. While Sunday breaks the mold of Brashear opponents in this film by being a sympathetic charcter, his changeover is as predictable as the behavior of anyone else in this film. By inflating the drama, making all the characters archetypes of themselves, Smith and Tillman lessen the impact. This should be the story of a real man, doing real things; what we get is an empty icon.

Some of the writing is just flat-out lazy, as well. Does Little Carl need to go to sleep with a Life magazine ad saying "Join the Navy" staring up at the camera? Do Carl's actions after his leg injury really need to exactly mirror the opening lines of the song "I Wish It Would Rain?" Do we really need to see Charlize Theron, as Sunday's wife, wasted in a boozy Southern belle role that would have shamed Tennessee Williams? Much of this movie seems to be taken up with unnecessary point-making and pointless subplots.

"Men of Honor" almost works anyway, however, thanks to a wonderful cast. Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Brashear. Gooding has always been a marvellously sympathetic actor, but this is the performance of his career. He invests Brashear with all the fury and pathos he needs, even when none of it is written in the script. Even dumb dialogue sounds good coming out of his mouth, and his eyes communicate determination and defiance as well. Gooding's dark, angry, satisfied face after he has endured a hideous ordeal of a final exam to become a Navy Diver is one of the more unforgettable faces you'll see this year.

Robert DeNiro was born to play better roles than Billy Sunday, but he nevertheless throws himself into the role with complete abandon. No one surpasses his talents for onscreen psychosis or ferocious line-reading, and he almost makes Sunday a believable character by sheer force of will. Though much of his role is dramatically unnecessary, it makes sense to keep DeNiro in the film as much as possible, and he delivers the goods. Aunjanue Ellis is lovely and commanding as Brashear's sweetheart, providing a few of the recognizably human moments in the film, and the rest of the cast does a pretty good job.

"Men of Honor" has good motives, and any attention brought to Brashear's story is good attention. Carl Brashear must have lived an amazing life. But even with the cast's wondrous contributions, all you really get in "Men of Honor" are cardboard cutouts engaging in battles that are as laudable in real life as they are shallowly presented here. Unfortunately, watching this film will leave you with more admiration for Carl Brashear than for "Men of Honor."

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