MOVIE REVIEW
“The Finest Hours”
Grade: C+
Starring Chris Pine, Holliday Grainger and Eric Bana. Directed by Craig Gillespie.
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of peril. Check listings for theaters. 1 hour, 57 minutes.
Bottom line: True story that has terrific parts at sea and parts that run aground on land
“The Finest Hours,” based on the true story of the valiant 1952 Coast Guard rescue of a sinking oil tanker off the coast of Massachusetts, splits in two much like the wounded vessel at its heart.
There’s the film that’s set on the sea and much of that is pretty terrific, even if it brings to mind “A Perfect Storm.” And then there’s film set on land, and that one runs aground.
Chris Pine is Bernie Webber, a young Coast Guardsman whose daily routine is upended when he’s tasked with heading up a team to save the 30-plus crew from the Pendleton, a wreck drifting in the storm-tossed waters during a vicious winter nor’easter.
Webber and his equally young co-horts — Richard (Ben Foster), Andy (Kyle Gallner, “American Sniper”) and Ervin (John Magaro, “The Big Short”) — are the JV squad as the more seasoned sailors have already left to help another ship in distress. But their commanding officer (Eric Bana, whose Southern accent is nearly as much of a disaster as the Pendleton) has no choice but to send them out.
Meanwhile, aboard the Pendleton, the captain and much of the crew have been killed and now it’s up to reclusive but knowledgeable chief engineer Ray Sybert (a good Casey Affleck) to take command of what’s left and try to keep everyone alive until help arrives.
These scenes provide the film with its most suspenseful and rewarding moments and seem to be the ones where director Craig Gillespie (“Million Dollar Arm,” “Lars and the Real Girl”) shows the most inspiration.
There’s one sequence where orders are being quickly relayed from one crew member to another through the bowels of the ship that is a symphony of movement and tension. The actual rescue is satisfying as the twin stories of the rescuers and the rescued make for thrilling mirrors of each other.
Along with cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe (“Goosebumps,” “Blue Jasmine”), Gillespie plunges the viewer into the heart of the storm while many of the scenes in town glow appealingly as if shot through a scrim of nostalgia and memory. Still, some of the ocean effects and CGI are not as convincing as others and the 3D doesn’t add anything. The same goes for the Boston accents, which are notoriously difficult for actors to handle without lapsing into parody.
Ultimately, “The Finest Hours” doesn’t sink to the bottom of the ocean, but it can’t avoid its own choppy cinematic waters either.
