TIME EUROPE
December 4, 2000, Vol. 156 No. 23
Some More Good Men
The plot's predictable, the characters are clichés. Yet this naval drama sails through with flying colors
By RICHARD SCHICKEL
There are times when less would not be more, when it would just be regrettably ... less. Umberto Eco has argued, for example, that Casablanca works because it evokes every convention of the romantic-adventure genre. If it had missed even one or two of them, he suggests, it would have been just another forgettably routine wartime movie.
That idea applies neatly to Men of Honor. It is one of those dramas of peacetime military service in which a determined individual attains what he wants — in this case, master-chief rank and to be a master diver in the U.S. Navy — and in the process surmounts his own shortcomings and the completely predictable prejudice and near deadly hostility of the brass.
Inspired (a word that is bound to make realists queasy) by the real-life story of a man named Carl Brashear, who is played by Cuba Gooding Jr., the film is feverish in its desire to reduce his experiences to a compendium of clichés. Carl is, to begin with, the son of a black sharecropper. He joins the Navy in 1948, when the military is officially desegregated yet still confines men of his race to the galley. But he sees Navy divers being heroic and decides to join their ranks.
Diving school is commanded by a god-like lunatic (Hal Holbrook) who never leaves his tower office but knows what he hates, which is a black man striving for élite status. All but one of Carl's barracks mates move out rather than sleep in the same room with him. Day-to-day training is under the command of Billy Sunday (Robert De Niro), a drunken, brawling redneck who, if he can't drive Carl out of school, would just as soon kill him.
But that's just the beginning. In need of help with his book learning, Carl wins the support of the dubious local librarian (an appealing Aunjanue Ellis). Can love and marriage be far behind? Not in this movie. Will Carl attain his goal and Billy's reluctant respect? Why are we bothering to ask?
A certain novelty arises when Carl's leg is shattered in an accident. The Navy wants him to retire. Instead he orders the leg amputated, thinking a prosthesis will be less of a handicap to him on duty. We may never have seen courage expressed in quite that way, but it's also an excuse to bring a sobered-up Billy back to help Carl prove to a review board that he can return to active service. This, naturally, he does, presumably with the thanks of a grateful nation.
By now, you would think that even a nation with the U.S.'s uncanny taste for inspirational improbability might be fed up with Men of Honor. But that may not be so. There's something refreshing about its utterly unembarrassed embrace of the familiar. The director, George Tillman Jr., either doesn't notice or doesn't give a hoot about the way Scott Marshall Smith's script piles up clichés. He just keeps driving his movie right on through them. What's true of him is true of his actors too. De Niro pitches his performance on the edge of psychopathy, where menace and comedy very effectively coexist. But it is Gooding who does the most to redeem the movie, tempering his determination with a patient sweetness and casually stated masculine conviction that's thoroughly winning. To borrow a phrase, "Here's looking at you, kid."
This edition's table of contents
TIME Europe home
More stories from TIME Europe and related links
E-mail us at mail@timeatlantic.com
Like what you're reading?
Click here to try 4 FREE ISSUES of TIME
|
|
|
|
COVER STORY
Bush's Contested Lead
Now it goes to the courts as Gore challenges Sunday night's Florida tally
Heart Murmurs
Dick Cheney's brief but sudden hospitalization raises questions about fitness and truthfulness
Just How Bad Was It?
TIME's Christine Gorman on the vice-presidential candidate's diagnosis
Mob Scene In Miami
We look at the players behind the 'spontaneous' protest that preceded the shutdown of Miami-Dade's recount
Two-Headed Senate
With a potential Democratic victory in Washington State, the likelihood of gridlock and bickering looms large
EUROPE
Ready, Aim ... React
What can a Rapid Reaction Force from 14 E.U. countries do that NATO can't? Not much
In a Legend's Steps
Shackleton's brave Antarctic trip still awes the world. On his trail are three Britons
MIDDLE EAST
Into the War Zone
Palestinians are now directly attacking Israeli settlements. It's a new - and dangerous - tactic
THE ARTS
Full-Screen Press
French television program Arrêt sur Images entertains audiences by taking the media to task
Pictures From An Exhibitionist
Elton John has put together a big, brainy collection. Now Atlanta, his adopted city, is showing it off
The Vulnerable Woman
Jessica Lange tackles O'Neill's Long Day's Journey and shows she is more than just a great ape's date
Some More Good Men
The plot's predictable, the characters are clichés. Yet this naval drama sails through with flying colors
Fallen Angels
The stars of 'Charlie's Angels' try to soar, but the plot clips their wings
DEPARTMENTS
Techwatch
Worldwatch
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
E-mail us at mail@timeatlantic.com
|
|
