Men Of Honor

The DVD contains a wealth of additional extras to enjoy. As well as the standard shots of De Niro and Gooding Jr. looking pained, we have an HBO featurette, Carl Brashear documentary, music video, trailers, storyboards, deleted scenes AND commentary.

Even better, some of the extras are actually very good. Instead of static storyboards, we get talked through the process of creating a scene, with the aid of computer graphics. The deleted scenes all come with commentary from the director explaining the reasons behind each cut (including the alternative ending and love scenes). These range from not having enough time, to not being integral - the standard stuff.

Then there's the film commentary which has not just the director but the writer, producer and actor - quite a party. Thankfully, it's Cuba Gooding Jr., and not the rather less than electrifying De Niro, who fills the last role. The commentary consists mostly of anecdotes from the making of the film, including how they got the actor playing the young Carl to run so fast (his teacher was chasing him). They also go into depth about the process of transferring the initial idea for the film to the screen.

De Niro - and Charlize Theron - do feature in the HBO special, which is similar to every other HBO special you'll have seen on other DVDs. The documentary is informative, if a little dull, and the music video is just awful. The trailer and spots are interesting for the way they portray the character of Carl Brashear - as always real life is both more complicated and more interesting.

All in all, this is a tremendously well put together set of extras, even if you do have to search for the gems.