Men of Honor

Men of Honor follows Carl Brashear, a Black sailor from Kentucky who sets out to join the U.S. Navy's diving program in the years after the Second World War, when the service was still largely segregated and no Black man had entered that elite branch. Trained under Billy Sunday, a veteran diver grounded by an accident and openly hostile to his new recruit, Brashear pushes through institutional resistance and personal cost to pursue his goal. The film is based on Brashear's life, and its story spans roughly three decades.

George Tillman Jr. directed the film, his first feature after his 1997 debut, from a screenplay by Scott Marshall Smith. Robert De Niro plays Sunday opposite Cuba Gooding Jr. as Brashear, with Charlize Theron, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Hal Holbrook and Michael Rapaport in support.

Made for about 32 million dollars, the film took in roughly 82 million worldwide, a solid return. On IMDb it holds 7.2 out of 10 from around 131,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.5 from a much smaller base of 2,587. A critics' rating of 5.7 from 104 reviews places professional assessment noticeably below the audience scores. The reception suggests a film that general viewers have embraced more warmly than critics did.