Cast: Chris Pine,Casey Affleck,Ben Foster, Holliday Grainger,John Ortiz,Eric Bana

Direction: Craig Gillespie

Produced: Dorothy Aufiero, James Whitaker

Written: Casey Sherman, Michael Tougias

Genre: Disaster Film

Duration: 117 Mins

February 18, 1952. The weather is terrible. The sea is unyielding. The visibility is zero. Just the time for a crisis. Two oil tankers break into two halves on that fateful day. The SS Fort Mercer may have split after the SS Pendleton but managed to send across a distress call before communications were cut off. Naturally, the coast guards rushed to the aid of the latter ship.

This left the crew of the SS Pendleton struggling for survival, blowing whistles and sending sporadic help signals, hoping to be found. Ray Sybert (Casey Affleck) inadvertently takes over as the de facto captain, determined to survive and ensure that the men hold out until help arrives... whenever it does. Tensions rise on the sinking vessel. "Sounds like you're the man now," warns Ray's fellow member when he dissuades them from abandoning ship (which would have been certain death). "Let's hope you didn't just kill us all."

When the ship and the coast guards of Station Chatham, Massachusetts, establish contact, it is considered a suicide mission, especially given only the availability of the Coast Guard's 36-foot CG-36500 Motor Lifeboat.

It falls upon Petty Officer 1st Class Bernard Webber (Chris Pine) along with a three person crew of Richard Livesey (Ben Foster), Andrew Fitzgerald (Kyle Gallner) and Ervin Maske (John Magaro) to rescue more than 30 men in a boat that cannot carry more than 12. The loved ones of the rescuers wait on shore while the SS Pendleton crew waits with bated breath for aid. Things worsen when the unruly waves wreck the CG-36500, leaving Bernie and his crew without any compass for navigation. Armed with a smashed rescue boat and a searchlight, the four men find the crew, rescue them and return to shores, packed to over-capacity. It is considered the greatest small boat rescue in coast guard history.

The Finest Hours has stirring visuals and edge-of-the-seat action. Bernie's bland romance with his fiancée Miriam (Holliday Grainger) is kept to the minimum. This works when there is frequent intercutting between the parallel tracks on the shore, in the boat and on the ship. In a storyline where every moment counts, the film wastes no time when the actual crisis kicks in. The last time a boat racing over immense waves looked terrifying on the big screen was in San Andreas, which was also a disaster movie scaled to unrealistic proportions but with deeply satisfying cinematic results.
The Finest Hours is worth a few of yours. Watch the disaster unfold in all its 3D, Dolby Atmos, big screen glory. Do not reserve this one for a laptop watch.