Billy Sunday: Robert De Niro	Carl Brashear: Cuba Gooding Jr.
Gwen: Charlize Theron	Jo: Aunjanue Ellis
Mr. Brashear: Carl Lumbly	Captain Hanks: David Conrad
Mr. Pappy: Hal Holbrook	Snowhill: Michael Rapaport
Rourke: Holt McCallany	Director: George Tillman Jr.

30 Second Bottom Line: A vintage American "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" story, of the first African- American sailor to complete the Navy Diver program.

Story Line: Mr. Brashear (Carl Lumbly) is a sharecropper, which on the surface means that you share the profits of working the land owned by someone else. While that may be true, what is more important is the fact that one has to work literally like a slave to make less than the minimum wage. The Brashear family gives meaning to the term "dirt poor."

Young Carl Brashear likes to swim when he is not studying, or working the farm with his father. President Truman desegregated the armed forces after WWII, which permitted African-Americans to pursue opportunities beyond that of cooks and servants in the Navy. Carl (Cuba Gooding Jr.) sees this as an opportunity to turn his love of swimming into a career. Through perseverance, and writing over 100 letters of application to join the Navy's diving program, Brashear is finally admitted. As it turns out, that was the easy part.

His nemesis, Master Chief Billy Sunday (Robert De Niro), like Brashear comes from a poor sharecropper background. While they have this in common, Sunday is proud of his status as a Navy Diver, and believes that part of the tradition is to keep the corps all white. In addition to the regular hazing that all the candidates go through, Brasher has extra pressure to perform. Fellow classmates Rourke (Holt McCallany) and Snowhill (Michael Rapaport) have to struggle with the program, but without race being a negative factor.

When Sunday introduces Brashear to the men, Rourke says, "I don't bunk with Niggers." He leaves for another barracks, with everyone in pursuit, except Snowhill. When Carl asks him why he stayed, Snowhill offers a profound explanation, "I'm from Wisconsin."

With his education limited to the seventh grade, Carl has considerable difficulty keeping up with the academic part of the training program. Knowing that he needs help, he goes to the local black library and finds tutoring with a reluctant Jo (Aunjanue Ellis), who eventually becomes his wife and mother of their child.

After graduating from the Navy Diver Program and having a distinguished career, Carl suffers an accident, which mangles his leg. Part II of the film deals with his continued determination to become a Master Chief Navy Diver. Racism is his enemy at first. Later in his career, it's a pencil pushing Captain Hanks (David Conrad), who looks down on the military men who do the real work of the Navy…being on, over and under the sea.

Tell Me More About It: Going through any elite military program is full of pressure, with a high drop out rate. I experienced a similar training regimen when I attended and completed the six-month Army program to become a tank platoon leader, during the Viet Nam era.

Racism can be overt or carefully hidden. We see instances of both in Remember the Titans and in Men of Honor as well. I take my hat off to films like these, that find a way to entertain and inform us about the topic of race, which is often treated lightly in drama, made fun of in a comedy, or totally ignored.

One of my new pet peeves in life is how blunt the commercial messages are becoming in the midst of serious drama. Here, when Carl is looking for a US nuclear bomb on the ocean floor, a "finders keepers" search along with the Russians, he finds a Coke can, which we not only have to look at but hear it incorporated into the script!

It is gratifying to see that George Tillman, Jr., is able to make a $40M film. The normal budget for an African-American film is $30M or less. This is also a movie where an African-American male not only has sex with a woman, but does so with passion and love. You will recall that the biggest difference between Shaft 2000 (Samuel L. Jackson) and the original Shaft (Richard Roundtree), is that there is no sex in the updated version. As the song goes, Shaft is tough on the streets and quite the man in the bedroom. These are two of Hollywood's touchiest subjects, that are addressed in Men of Honor, in a subtle way, and that's a good thing.

The biggest heroes are not the Michael Jordan's or other celebrities in the world, but the people who overcome adversity and attain goals that have nothing to do with the entertainment of others. Such is the case with Carl Brashear. He loved to swim as a kid and he grew up in a strong, poor family in which his father wanted Carl to accomplish things he could not. While I was far from a rich kid, I was not poor like the Brashears but my dad was very much like his. The father's greatest dream was to see his child move another step away from the days of slavery and the limited opportunities that consumed much, if not all, of their lives. This motivation is far beyond race, as many in the US who are not African-American, can look over their shoulders and see a family past filled with hardship and unfairness.

Men of Honor is a deeply touching movie where the good guys win. You feel good when something wonderful happens to Carl; when life is hard, you also feel the pain. I saw this film in a theater packed with Navy people, which gave it extra meaning. My father-in-law was a Pearl Harbor survivor and a cook in the Navy.

As Mr. Brashear told his son with the initials inscribed on a hand made radio (ASNF)….a son never forgets. This is a film that you will remember for a long time to come.

Robert De Niro: Meet The Parents	Cuba Gooding Jr.: Jerry Maquire
Charlize Theron: The Yards	Aunjanue Ellis: A Map of the World
Carl Lumbly: How Stella Got Her Groove Back	David Conrad: The Weekend
Hal Holbrook: Waking the Dead	Michael Rapaport: Bamboozled
Holt McCallany: Three Kings	George Tillman Jr.: Soul Food