The Finest Hours is a dramatization of a real event chronicles in the book The Finest Hours: he True Story Of The U.S. Coast Guard’s Most Daring Sea Rescue. The events of the book, which I haven’t read, chronicle the 1952 Coast Guard rescue of the tanker SS Pendleton during a massive storm. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the film’s depiction of events or its adherence to the book, only as an adventure or disaster film.
In order to bring in some human drama and tension we are also getting the rescue told through officer Bernie Webber’s personal life. Webber (Chris Pine) needs to ask his commanding officer for permission to marry his girlfriend Miriam (Holliday Grainger). The film opens with the two of them meeting so as to establish their relationship. Just as he is about to a massive storm depletes the Coast Guard station’s crew with a rescue mission. When word comes the Pendleton needs rescuing the resources are already depleted and the weather situation has not improved.
It takes about 40-45 minutes of establishment to get going. We have the relationship between Bernie and Miriam, the commanding officer (Eric Bana) as an outsider, the Pendleton’s engine officer Ray (Casey Affleck) as a generally unliked person but forced to take command of a very bad situation.
Does the human drama help the action on the sea? To be honest, not really. In a way it is almost as if the relationship between Bernie and Miriam could have been the focus of the story with the storm being the 3rd act conflict that could keep them apart. Alright, so The Finest Hours may not win points for originality, but it does what it sets out to do effectively.
While The Finest Hours is a solid film, there are some issues. One is the sound. At times the music and special effects just overwhelm the ears. Alternately, at times the dialogue is difficult to discern. It’s not bad, but I hated turning up the volume to hear what somebody said only to have a massive wave assault my ears. The other issue is with the green screen in-studio shots. For the most part the special effects are fantastic, which make the few instances where the don’t work as well stick out all the more. Thankfully they are few enough they do not pull the viewer out of the story.
The Finest Hours almost felt like a sort of traditional 70’s hero story about a guy (or crew of guys, actually) going up against impossible odds to save… whatever. In a way it almost feels like a textbook example of this type of film. This is both to its detriment as well be benefit. You know what you are going to get going into it and are given exactly what you expect. No more, no less.
Special features are surprisingly scant. There is a 15 minute bit on Bernie Webber with enough film clips thrown in to dilute it to the point where I was rather disappointed. A couple of minutes are devoted to the rest of the crew in a separate featurette. Again, too short for what it is. An advertisement for the film in the guise of a tale of heroics from a current Coast Guard Member takes up a minute, a couple minutes on the set discussing the cast and two deleted scenes round out what are on the disc. Missing are an audio commentary, a meatier biography about the real Bernie Webber, a behind the scenes featurette on the challenges of making the film, adapting the book, adapting the real events or how typcast Casey Affleck is as a working class New Englander.