Men of Honor is the true story of Carl Brashear, whose dad taught him that if you are determined enough, and never give up, you can accomplish anything. Entering the Navy, Carl, a young black man was stereotyped as integration had just begun. He was relegated to cooking duties, and was told he would never advance in rank, for the sole reason of the color of his skin. Luckily Carl was smarter than that - and with a headstrong attitude and a never say die outlook, he was able to overcome the racism, sterotypes, and advance in rank.

Men of Honor follows Carl's (Cuba Gooding Jr.) life as he starts out as the son of a poor sharecropper, to his start in the Navy and admiration of Master Chief Sunday (Robert DeNiro), and his eventual conquering of all of life's challenges. And therein lies the only problem with the film - it chronicles almost his whole life - and at over 2 hours long, it starts to drag in the middle and towards the end. Other than that, however, the film is exceptional. The fact that this is a true story just adds to the emotional roller coaster the story presents.

Both DeNiro and Gooding Jr. turn in great performances and during the film a couple of times, the action is turned up a notch and really captures the audience. If it were not for the movie seeming to run a little long and still trying to compress a lot of storyline into a short movie, I would have almost nothing to criticize. In short, I enjoyed this movie almost the whole way through. Even though I got a little antsy in the middle and towards the end, it presented enough action and a great storyline which kept me interested. It's an amazing story that I'm glad was brought to the big screen. You won't be disappointed - well worth full price (and with prices these days, that's saying a lot).

Genres: Drama
Rated: R
Runtime: 128 minutes
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