I am a sucker for military-themed movies, in particular when there’s also an element of court-room Drama.
As a teenager, I fell in love with titles like A Few Good Men (1992), Crimson Tide (1995) and G.I. Jane (1997). My love for these films grew to such an extent, that they actually inspired me to join the Marine Corps. Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – I was rejected, and I had to fall back on the screen version of boot camp.
My admiration of the military is ironic, because I have been vigorously anti-gun for as long as I can remember. In fact – my very unpopular opinion is that firearms are appropriate for armed forces and law-enforcement only, and that civilians have no business owning a weapon of any kind. I guess this point of view will probably never get me elected as President of the Union States, but I’ve made my peace with that.
The point I am trying to make is that I am in awe of the discipline, valor and sense of duty that comes naturally to enlisted men and women, and I can always appreciate a movie with this theme.
Anyway, enough with the politics and back to the pictures.
A great title in the military genre that I hadn’t seen in a while, is Men of Honor (2000). This Robert De Niro - Cuba Gooding Jr. starrer came up in a conversation I had with my father – who himself served in the army – and I was immediately triggered to revisit it.
MoH tells the true story of Carl Brashear (Gooding Jr.), the first African-American U.S. Navy Diver. De Niro plays the tough-as-nails Master Chief Leslie “Billy” Sunday, in charge of training Brashear amidst overt and widespread racism.
Since it is highly irregular for a streamer to hold a whole bunch of library titles that are 20+ years old, I knew I probably had to look for MoH elsewhere. This is where it pays off to be one of the few nutcases left in the world who still buy physical media, because it turns out that I actually own the film on DVD.
MoH is exceptionally well-made, considering it was only director George Tillman Jr.’s third feature film. It has that typical early-Aughts sheen to it, where every scene feels like it was shot just before sunset.
I love the dynamics between Brashear and Sunday. There is something deeply fascinating about the relationship between drill instructor and recruit and in that sense, MoH reminds me a lot of straight-up classics like An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) and Full Metal Jacket (1987). Still, not even De Niro can touch Louis Gossett Jr. and R. Lee Ermey’s ultimate bad-asses, but it’s definitely a valiant attempt.
Interestingly, just one year after MoH, Gooding Jr. played navy cook Doris Miller in Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor (2001). Miller’s heroics – like Brashear’s – are based on actual events, and made him the first African-American to be awarded the Navy Cross for valor. There’s another lovely double feature for you.
MoH’s supporting cast is just a dream. Hal Holbrook, Michael Rapaport and Holt McCallany, but also Charlize Theron in an early appearance, and I’m always happy to see Powers Boothe after his untimely death in 2017.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – we see less and less mid-budget films like MoH these days, because there’s just no place for them in theaters anymore. The streamers do what they can to fill the $50 million gap, but they very rarely go for historical films or biopics.
MoH was a huge home-entertainment hit – I’m proud to have it in my collection – but the studios will likely abandon this dying business as well. Could it be that certain genres simply won’t be around anymore a couple of decades from now?
A disconcerting thought.
All the more reason however, to forever treasure my physical media collection and to keep revisiting old, soon to be obsolete friends.
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Twitter (X): Robin Logjes | The Screen Addict