I believe he actually executive produced this or coproduced it, so he wasn’t exactly cast, he probably just did it pro-bono to get his movie made. He must be a big Navy Aviation buff because he is also currently producing a documentary about the Blue Angels.
I went to see this film, it was ok, but I felt like they didn’t really develop the characters much beyond some surface stuff. Especially Jesse. I don’t really feel that we got to know him much and the relationship between him and Hudner never seemed to get past a sort of non confrontational, but bemused/strained distance. The airplane scenes were some good, some meh. If it was CGI with the Corsairs, it was well done CGI, not super cartoonish.