Men of Honour (2000) 

Tagline: History is made by those who break the rules.

Plot Outline: The story of Carl Brashear, the first African American, then also the first amputee, US Navy Diver and the man who trained him.

The story ultimately revolves around two "men of honor"; their relationship, their individual and joint failures and triumphs. Carl Brashear is determined to be the first African American Navy Diver in a time where racism is strife. Leslie Sunday is his embittered trainer, determined to see him fail. Fate, challenges and circumstances eventually draw these two men together in a tale of turbulance and ultimately triumph.

Carl Brashear, born in 1931 to sharecroppers, joins the Navy and, after watching the heroics of Billy Sunday, the White son of a sharecropper, determines to become the Navy's first African-American diver. At the Bayonne, N.J., divers' training camp, Sunday is his instructor, and Brasher must endure hazing verging on the murderous. With Sunday and the camp's commander dead set against Brashear's graduating, his physical skills and steely determination, which he got from his father, see him through. Carl and Billy's paths cross again when each needs rehabilitation one from an injury, the other from bitterness. Their wives look on with awe and frustration.

Review by Tiscalli film and TV

Spike Lee has made a career out of exploring racial prejudice and the social injustices suffered by blacks in America. Over the years his increasingly extreme stance has alienated growing sections of the public until he now finds himself preaching to the converted. Men Of Honour, directed by George Tillman Jr (Soul Food), deals with racial discrimination and intolerance within the U.S. military, but does its preaching at the service of entertainment rather than at its expense.

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