The Finest Hours is an old-fashioned story of heroism and love dressed up as a 3D spectacle. Based on the nonfiction book by Casey Sherman and Michael J. Tougias, the film recounts a proud incident from the annals of the U.S. Coast Guard, the 1952 rescue of the crew from a sinking tanker off Cape Cod during a nor’easter. Embarking on a mission some would call suicidal, a Coast Guard detail in a small half-open motorboat braved mountains of storm-roiled ocean to find the tanker and pluck the crew from the waves as they leaped from their doomed ship.
The 3D was virtually unnecessary given the staging of the howling gale, largely impressive despite some evident transitions between studio water tanks and computer imaging. The storm wind sends great waves rolling across the tanker’s deck, frigid water gushes through the ruptured hull and steel girders swing this way and that, nearly decapitating the crew. The love story also seems unnecessary, albeit it was apparently drawn from the truth. For boatswain’s mate Bernie Webber (Chris Pine) and Miriam (Holliday Grainger), it was love at first sight on the nervous blind date that opens the film. The sweet strains of the orchestral score tell us so.
As Bernie captains his fragile craft into the heart of the gale in search of the foundering tanker, Miriam does what women whose men have gone to the sea have always done—stare at the ocean waiting for his safe return. On board the little Coast Guard motorboat, the faces of the men register fear and duty, doubt and determination, as the waves lift them into the air. Maintaining quiet realism throughout, the acting of the cast strains against the Hollywood formula of dramatic music that tells the audience how to feel about the danger.
Not much point in a spoiler alert: The happy ending is a matter of public record. It should be said that The Finest Hours’ most intriguing character is the engineer aboard the tanker, Ray Sybert (Casey Affleck). Nowadays we might suspect that the withdrawn, socially awkward but mechanically brilliant seaman labors under Asperger’s. With the help of a sympathetic older merchant marine, he rises to take charge and save the ship just long enough for the Coast Guard to arrive.
The Finest Hours
2 and a half stars
Chris Pine
Casey Affleck
Directed by Craig Gillespie
PG-13
