Summaries

Synopsis

Master chief Leslie W. Sunday (Robert De Niro) is a US Navy diver & is currently under custody for being AWOL, in 1996 in Charleston, South Carolina. He is watching a familiar face on TV salvaging a nuclear device on the ocean floor. The 50 MT nuclear device was jettisoned by an American B-52 bomber before it crashed into the Mediterranean Sea.

Flashback 23 years back, African American Carl Braschear (Cuba Gooding Jr.) leaves his native Kentucky and the life of a sharecropper in 1949 by joining the United States Navy. Carl loved to swim deep underwater right from his childhood.His poor dad Mac (Carl Lumbly) gives him a radio as gift & asks him to be the best. Carl promises his father that he would never quit and fight for what he wants.

Carl is working in the kitchens on the USS Hoist. Carl is a good swimmer & despite breaking the rules, he is noticed by Captain Pullman (Powers Boothe) & sent to special training for search & rescue.

Master Chief Petty Officer Leslie William "Billy" Sunday is on the ship when a mail chopper hits a radio mast, and crashes into the sea. Divers (including Sunday) are launched to rescue the crew. Sunday brings back a crew member rescued from the wreck. Sunday free dives to rescue the diver who is knocked overboard without an airline. Lt Hanks was in charge of the entire operation and threatens Sunday with dire consequences if he ignored orders and free dived to rescue his colleague. Sunday saves his fellow diver but develops an air embolism which prevents him from ever diving again.Sunday has a meltdown at the hospital, and at a review board, he is medically disqualified from diving, docked half pay for 3 months, and assigned to a diving school.

Brashear is fascinated to see divers in operations and is determined to become the first African American Navy diver, even proclaiming that he will become a Master Chief, the highest rank that an enlisted man can achieve in the Navy. He eventually is allowed to attend Diving and Salvage School in Bayonne, New Jersey based on the personal recommendation of Captain Pullman.

2 years later Carl reports to Diving school & has no friends. He finds that Master Chief Sunday is the head instructor. The other students, led by Dylan Rourke (Holt McCallany), refuse to bunk with Brashear.Anyone fraternizing with Carl is thrown out by Sunday. Carl is doing well at physical training but failing at academics a result of his leaving school in the seventh grade in order to work on his family's farm.

At the library he meets Jo (Aunjanue Ellis) who is impressed & helps Carl pass at academics. Carl marries Jo. Carl meets Gwen Sunday (Charlize Theron), Leslie's wife. Gwen uses Carl to antagonize Leslie with whom she shares a frosty relationship.

Camp Commanding Officer 'Mr. Pappy' Captain USN (Hal Holbrook) asks Sunday to fail Carl, as he cant see an African American man passing his academy.Brashear proves himself as a diver by rescuing a fellow student when his dive partner, Rourke, abandons him during a salvage exercise gone wrong. At Mr. Pappy's instruction, Rourke is awarded a medal, taking credit for Brashear's actions.After learning his father has died, Brashear encounters Sunday and the rest of the class at a bar. When Sunday asks if Brashear thinks he is better than him, the two don diving gear that fills with water to see who can hold his breath longer. After four minutes, Sunday's nose starts to bleed and the students drain his suit, leaving Brashear the winner.

The final test is to assemble a flange underwater with the components sent to the recruits via a bag. Carl's bag is slashed & components spread on the ocean floor. Brashear must take time to locate and gather his tools as the water temperature drops. Carl takes 10 hours but delivers a perfect flange. Sunday refutes Pappy's orders to kill Carl underwater. Sunday continually loses his composure around officers who disrespect his accomplishments until he is finally demoted to chief petty officer and relegated to menial duties.At a bar Sunday attacks Lt Hanks (David Conrad), the man who discharged him from Navy after his accident. Sunday hates Hanks for ending his career.

In prison, Sunday is watching Carl retrieving a nuclear missile from the ocean. Carl becomes a national hero in the 1966 Palomares incident for evading a Soviet submarine, and recovering a missing hydrogen bomb.Carl has a freak accident on the surface ship when the anchor comes loose & shears his leg off. This effectively ends his diving career.A couple of years later Carl decides to amputate his leg & fit it with a prosthesis to be eligible to resume diving. Until this time, no Navy man had ever returned to full active duty with a prosthetic limb.But Hanks is the new head of the diving certification & plainly refuses Carl. Sunday approaches Hanks & asks for 4 weeks to train Carl & review with the full board members of the diving committee.

A month later, Carl appears before the Naval Personnel and they discuss his possible return. Captain Hanks outlines a new requirement for Navy Divers- a new diving suit, weighing in at 290 pounds has been approved for use and anyone wanting to use it must take 12 steps inside it on land. Carl, seeing that Jo and his son are in the audience, volunteers to take the 12 steps right then and there.

Chief Sunday steps forward and offers to help Carl suit up, and Captain Hanks allows the trial to go forth. Carl stands up in the new suit, and-with obvious great discomfort- takes a few clumsy steps forward. Everyone assumes that his prosthetic will snap, but Sunday steps forward and begins shouting orders at Carl (identical to their first session at diving school years before).

Carl struggles, but keeps moving forward until he has reached the twelfth step. Captain Hanks, realizing that no more can be done, announces that the Navy will be reinstating Carl Brashear to full diving duty.Carl completed another 9 years in US Navy before his retirement.