"Men of Honor" shares the all-American thrills of "The Contender" while celebrating an African-American man whose political views are unknown but whose determination to contribute mightily to his country is liberty-bell clear. His life could have been the subject of a dull, talking-heads biopic but director George Tillman Jr. does a bracing job of bringing this true American hero to life with all the force that a stirring sound track (by Mark Isham) and lines-are-drawn acting could bring. If the music obtrusively punctuates what is apparent in the struggle of Carl Brashear (Cuba Gooding Jr.) to overcome racial prejudice in the post World War II Navy (as scripted by Scott Marshall Smith), Tillman means well. If the obligatory courtroom finale is as schematic and schmaltzy as the conclusion of Rod Lurie "The Contender," all the better to appeal to a crowd less influenced by modern critical standards to condemn the mawkish. "Men of Honor" may be square, but in recent years we've had all the hip we need in the movie theaters.

Filmed by Anthony B. Richmond with some tense, authentic underwater photography, "Men of Honor" focuses on the struggle between Carl Brashear, who became the Navy's first African-American diver, and a crew of people headed by Master Chief Diver Billy Sunday (Robert De Niro). Pushed by his sharecropper father to be all he can be, Brashear enters the all-white Naval diving program. Despite his seventh- grade education, he struggles through the initial written tests, fails one, and passes the second with a reasonable grade. The real test comes for Brashear when he must deal with the refusal of the entire crew save the stuttering Snowhill (Michael Rapaport) to bunk with him. (All but Snowhill walk out...so where did they get to bunk anyway?) While Sunday is determined to flunk the man, pushed to do so by his racist commanding officer Mr. Pappy (Hal Holbrook), as he puffs away on his corncob pipe--a gift from General MacArthur--he slowly grows to appreciate Brashear's enormous motivation. This impetus to become a diver and even rise to the top of his profession is made most dramatic by what Brashear does to himself in the hospital while recovering from an accident.

Since Carl Brashear was a real, live person who--as the audience knew beforehand actually fought and won the good fight depicted here-- we in the audience knew from the start that this was a man that Billy Sunday could not shut down. Despite this, Tillman's characterizations bring out the humor as well as the poignancy, making the journey to victory the cause for celebration.