Review of Men of Honor (2000) by Alex R — 31 Jan 2011

Men Of Honor is a terrific film based on the first African American Master Diver. Cuba Gooding Jr. delivers in the lead role of Carl Brashear and Robert De Niro gives a phenomenal performance as well. Brashear overcame racial tensions in the Navy to achieve his goal of becoming a master diver.

Despite racist slurs yelled at by his classmates, and attempts at sabotaging his exercises, Brashear proves that he's got what it takes to make it, and he does in the face of bigotry. The only reason that I don't give this film a higher rating is because the film felt slightly cliched at times and overplayed on the sentimentality of the main character.

Towards the end the film started to navigate the usual feel good film territory and it felt slightly flat. Despite this, Men Of Honor is a terrific film with a great cast of talented actors that can pull off something thats nearly flawless.

De Niro and Gooding Jr. light up each scene they're in and give splendid performance. Not to mention that this is one of the strongest performances of Cuba Gooding Jr. career. A well made film despite the typical feel good ending.

The ending was good, but I feel they could have tweaked it slightly to make it better, there was something missing. An entertaining film to watch, Men Of Honor is a great film that despite the flaws remains a good film to watch due to it's strong cast of actor who all deliver great performances.

The ending is good, but not great. But I guess considering this is a story of not giving up, I guess this is the usual ending for such movies.