The Finest Hours is an enjoyable rescue thriller, nothing more nothing less

Walt Disney Studios

I think that stories based on real events are always popular, but is it just me or has there been a lot of that lately? That In the Heart of the Sea movie with Chris Hemsworth, for example, is another ocean movie but really last year was full of them, from The Danish Girl to Concussion to The Walk. But I think that there’s a draw that appeals to patriotism and adventure in the same way, and maybe sprinkle (or shoehorn) in some romance for good measure. Check all of the boxes.

The Finest Hours comes from director Craig Gillespie and is based on the real life events regarding the SS Pendleton in 1952 by the US Coast Guard from Station Chatham in Massachusetts. The movies starts with the hero of the movie, Bernard Weber (Chris Pine), who is an officer of the Coast Guard as he meets a new girl, Miriam (Holliday Grainger). Their relationship becomes one of the things the movie jumps back into later on, but at first the movie just gives us a bit of background between these two. It’s charming enough, if not exceptionally interesting. Cut to a year later when the real action starts.

In February 1952, the oil tanker SS Pendleton runs into a heavy winter storm off the coast of Massachusetts and breaks in half. Everyone from the front half are gone, and the survivors scramble to stay afloat long enough to find rescue. They are led primarily by engineer Ben Affleck’s brother Casey Affleck as they find tense and difficult ways to keep going. The movie then cuts back and forth between that and two other ongoing points of view. One is Bernie, as he takes his ragtag crew in a tiny ship to make an impossible rescue and the other is Miriam as she tries to get a handle on what happened at the station back on shore.

The ship scenes are probably the most interesting, because they are new problems to be solved, and a few interesting (and a few uninteresting) characters. Then there’s Bernie’s adventure, which is a bit inconsistent, because you can only watch so many scenes of a boat smashing through enormous waves before the impact is lowered. Miriam’s scenes don’t work quite as well, because although you get the idea — building up the stakes — it seems a lot more artificial than the rest of it.

Unfortunately the romantic stuff doesn’t really work, especially in comparison to the more exciting action scenes. The back and forth between Miriam and Bernie’s commanding officer seems to be going someplace but then peters out. I’m not sure what they were really going for there. But I should say, the scenes of the rescue itself were great — excellent effects, both practical and CGI. It’s a good mix of the type, although perhaps it’ll all seem dated in ten years.

From an acting perspective, it’s mostly pretty positive. Chris Pine does a decent job here, although he doesn’t really have much to do. He and the rest are drenched in so much water, I have to imagine it was a bit of difficult shoot at times. Holliday Grainger is perfectly lovely here, but her role is quite underwritten. There were a lot of character actors all over the place, like the gruff old sailor or antagonistic other sailor, but whether or not they worked is a separate matter. The writing itself is not particularly strong, but that’s okay — it’s the action that sells it here.

In a kind of summary, it’s a very classic take on the rescue thriller — the characters (as they are based on real people) aren’t particularly interesting, but the experience is still pretty good. Ignore the romance and the weaker pieces, but the rest works pretty well.