I’ve been watching trailers for this thing for months now — with its big special-effect spectacle and Chris Pine as a wholesome Coast Guard sailor with a Boston accent — dreading inevitably sitting through it. And now that it’s here, I can say it’s not awful, so “not awful” that it’ll end up in the $7.99 bin at Best Buy instead of the $5.99 bin and have a long life playing randomly on TBS.
The Finest Hours is what we called “old-fashioned,” which translates to professional, yet mostly dull. It’s earnest and inoffensive and attempts to tell a heartwarming story, one about an oil tanker that’s ripped in half during a blizzard and the Coast Guard’s attempts to save the crew. At least that’s the idea, except the film has some structural problems. The action set-pieces that double as the emotional weight and make up the film’s most suspenseful moments take way too long to get to. Instead, there’s a long slog through setting up the goodhearted nature of Bernie (Chris Pine), our Coast Guard hero, and his relationship with his fiancee (Holliday Grainger, Cinderella). In theory, this makes sense, since there needs to be an emotional center to this big mission, but the film just drags its feet for far too long.
A lot of this might have to do with my general antipathy towards Chris Pine and the Chris Pine Experiment. What role is he meant for, anyway? I barely buy him as a daring space captain and I certainly don’t believe him as the cow-eyed everyman in this movie. His shortcomings become more apparent when the sinking ship comes into play and co-star Casey Affleck, as crewman Ray, gets more screentime. Simply put, Affleck is the most likable actor in the film and his character’s the most dynamic. This is also when all the big CGI fireworks start, which, like the rest of the film, are passable, but never is there anything unique at play here. It’s all been done (and in some cases, done a month ago with In the Heart of the Sea), sometimes better, sometimes worse. As far as grand spectacle, it’s all pretty middling and more visually dreary than it probably should be, but does occasionally veer towards true moments of suspense.
The issue becomes, however, that this point in the story is when the film is at it’s best, climaxing far too soon in exchange for a far more subdued third act. All of this, of course, is supposed to evoke humanity’s indomitable spirit, gently spiraling into a morass of feel-good humanity, but I’ll be damned if, in the bargain, it isn’t pretty inert dramatically. These are The Finest Hours greatest flaws — its inability to sustain or show inspiration for any palatable amount of time. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of peril.
I can understand some of your points, but I liked it a lot better than you did. This was probably because I grew up in Chatham, met Bernie Webber and Andy Fitzgerald and knew the families of the locals they mentioned, so after hearing the story first hand I was on the edge of my seat once they set off on the rescue. I’ve done a lot of boating in the area and know how nasty those shoals can be. I’m sorry Disney made it, but I am glad the story made it to the big screen.
I trust they are more interesting in real life than their onscreen portrayals.
Much more interesting. There’s something about a person that makes their living from the sea than someone who just reads a script.
I found the character building exceptionally dull. The only thing I cared about was the rescue and I thought it took far too long and wasn’t presented with much creativity or variety. “Here’s another wave – how many does that make?”
That’s Disney for you, they. Do full things down. Being out in storms I know how the waves come in.
It could be that this doesn’t really lend itself to dramatization.