The standard biopic plotline based on the life story of Carl Brashear follows the uneducated sharecropper’s son (Gooding) as he braves 1950s-era racial discrimination for the right to risk his life in one of the most dangerous occupations in the armed services. At the Navy’s elite salvage school in New Jersey master diver Billy Sunday (Robert De Niro) gives Brashear the “Officer and a Gentleman” treatment singling him out for special punishment at the request of the base’s insane racist commander (Hal Holbrook). Will the hero overcome the obstacles in his path to becoming a master diver himself?
Gooding’s glowing likability is the main factor keeping the film’s saintly conception of Brashear from getting annoying fast. The one-dimensional character lacks a single flaw for an actor to grab onto but Gooding’s enthusiasm is contagious (remember that Oscar speech?) and he gets surprising mileage out of it. De Niro’s trademark intensity is put to only minimal use in a variation of the cantankerous drill sergeant part familiar from half the military flicks ever made.
George Tillman Jr. (“Soul Food”) delivers some effective if obvious action-drama in the film’s first half which chronicles Brashear’s tireless efforts to earn his Navy flippers. Unfortunately Scott Marshall Smith’s screenplay gets a bit water-logged dealing with the hero’s subsequent career both above and below the waves. (One key development closely parallels John Wayne’s role as a Navy flier in another true story 1957’s “The Wings of Eagles.) All this sets up a particularly weak courtroom finale reminiscent of another slew of movies including “A Few Good Men” and “Rules of Engagement.”
