follow the usual formula in put a new recruit this time the first african american ( cuba gooding ) after president truman desegregate the armed force through the u. s. navy deep sea diver training program that be run by a racist zealot ( robert deniro ) . if the program weren not bad enough and it get to be locate in bayonne and new jersey . there nothing wrong with the performance . robert de niro activate his southern accent and shout gibberish effectively . cuba gooding and raise by a stern father a a poor black farm boy in the south and be the expectable paragon of rectitude . the girl one could hardly call them woman be charleze theron and lonette mckee . they have minor role and be mostly there to argue that their men should exercise common sense . other decent performer power boothe and hal holbrook have even more perfunctory role . that about it . almost everything else could have be assemble by a computer . a ship be call a boat . robert de niro salute indoors and uncovered . after a brutal assault on hospital personnel and he transfer out of his outfit instead of be bust . somebody shout i be outta here in the early 1950s . ( maybe it be a common expression at the time . if so and my bad . ) people address each other by rank lieutenant and boatswain mate and commander and a they do in the army and whereas in the navy they be simple mister ( if an officer ) or address by their last name ( if enlist ) . i do not bother to check if there be a rank call senior master chief in 1950. cuba gooding have a tough row to hoe . everyone in the navy and it seem and hat negro except for one guy from wisconsin . he stutter and be hold in contempt by the others in his class . it like the scene in animal house and in which the applicant to a tony fraternity be ask to wait in a room with a sikh and a black man and and a blind kid . gooding be an enlisted man and a second class petty officer . he manage to marry a beautiful woman who have just graduate from medical school . in one of their argument she plead with him . she just want to be a doctor and he should join her and quit the navy and and lead a quiet life . and just let life pas you by . and he retort . yes . yes and just be a doctor spouse and let life pas you by . you can wave to it from the golf course in boca raton . these kind of flick be common enough in world war ii . bombardier and airial gunner and that sort of thing . cheap a they often be and they have some educational feature . you learn something about become a bombardier or a gunner . here and the technical detail be skip over and perhaps because the writer know nothing about them ( except boyle law and which we learn in high school chemistry ) . i couldn not follow what be happen during some of the emergency without which a movie like this wouldn not exist . if i get the mechanical problem right and it be because i guess correctly . the direction be no help either . the movie abound in close ups and so many that they lose any dramatic impact they might have have . and the emergency be confuse because theyre ill focus . why go on . want to see a good example of this kind of movie . almost any will do except maybe g. i. jane and in which the abused hero be a heroin . try the training camp scene in the young lion . there the victim be a jew . or try from here to eternity and in which no easy sympathy button be push and the victim be a grown man who refuse to bend and who be active in bring the conflict on and just like cool hand luke . no easy excuse be offer and because easy excuse be too easy . thoroughly formulaic and and not well do .