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Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated The Finest Hours (2016) in Movies

Aug 6, 2019  
The Finest Hours (2016)
The Finest Hours (2016)
2016 | Action, Drama, Mystery
4
6.2 (5 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
The Finest Hours tells the story of four men who, in February of 1952, undertook one of the most daring rescue attempts in the history of the Unites States Coast Guard. A tanker, the SS Pendleton, is caught in a storm off the coast of New England and is ripped in half, leaving more than 30 sailors adrift and sinking. While Bernard Webber (Chris Pine) leads an impossible rescue in a lifeboat designed to hold only 12, his fiancée, Miriam (Holliday Grainger), struggles to come to terms with what it means to be the wife of a man who has to willingly risk his life for others.

 

Year after year, it proves out. January is just not a good month for cinema. With one hand, the studios campaign for award season glory and with the other, dump their trash. That’s not to say The Finest Hours is total garbage. Even I’m not that cynical to unconditionally condemn something that shines a light on the triumph of the human spirit when faced with insurmountable odds. It’s just that there is only about one-third of a good film here. Anytime the crew of the Pendelton was onscreen, I was captivated. Their struggle for survival and their feats of engineering under incredible pressure make for riveting entertainment and should have been a film unto itself. These scenes unfortunately are interspaced with and, more often than not, forced to take a back seat to paint-by-numbers dialogue, two-dimensional caricatures (both disappointing when you consider the three writers on this film were behind The Fighter) and a shockingly abrasive score during the main U.S. Coast Guard narrative. And yes, it may be called The Finest Hours, but if that’s the title they’re going with a little more effort should have been put into the rescuers, as opposed to those being rescued. Overall, we’re deprived of a sense of urgency, in what is supposed to be a race against time, and an intimacy with any character performed well enough to be worth caring about.

 

At least this isn’t a complete waste of an all-star cast. I’ll ease off on Chris Pine, tempted as I might be to pick on him. After having fumbled his way through both Captain Kirk and Jack Ryan, doing so now in a flick produced by Disney would feel rather like a cheap shot. Instead it’s fairer to write off the other, usually more dependable leads and praise Casey Affleck, who alone makes The Finest Hours watchable. Ironically, he plays the man who has to keep not only half a ship afloat, but an entire crew together. Between Eric Bana’s overstatement, Ben Foster’s understatement, and a questionable casting choice in Holliday Grainger, Affleck is heads above the rest when it comes to making courage and sentiment ring true.

 

A regrettable execution notwithstanding, better can and should have been done to honor these distinguished service members and viewers looking for a storytelling standard above the level of your average Hallmark original are advised to look elsewhere. Try, for instance, Oliver Stone’s (not as controversial as we all thought it was going to be) World Trade Center for a better example of how these tales of perseverance and survival are supposed to be done.