The Finest Hours

This is the film that 13 Hours should have been. Both military rescues based on narratives from American history … both involve men risking their own lives to save others. The difference isn’t in the result, it’s in the approach. The Finest Hours had no undertone of our heroes itching to kill, nor those same men having contempt for the people they’re sent to rescue. It also, thankfully, didn’t portray the victims as useless toddlers. It’s all in the tone, fellas.

Not that the tone here is perfect. Far from it. U.S.C.G. Boatswain’s Mate First Class Bernie (Chris Pine) starts the film with a failed meet cute. Well, I say “failed,” just because the script sucked here – he calls her a “bear”—the failure is compounded in the next scene months later when Miriam (Holliday Grainger) responds to waltz lessons by asking for Bernie’s hand. He says, “no.” Are you kidding me? Miriam’s storm out of the dance hall yields, eventually, the correct response. Again, are you kidding me? Why I am rooting for either of you?

The very next day, Bos’n Bernie has to ask permission from The Chief (Eric Bana) to wed Miriam when 1952 decides everybody should wake up and take notice of earth science. Not one, but two oil tankers off the coast of Massachusetts have split in half as a result of the winter snowstorm. Were 1950s oil tankers made of legos? Unfortunately for the S.S. Pendleton, all the good coast guard ships have already headed to the first, so the Pendleton is being attend to by the B-team: Cap’n Kirk and three sailors of dubious qualification defying the deathstorm in a glorified rowboat.

I love the setting. The local coast guard office has relatively open flow and a cafeteria that welcomes all townspeople. The building may as well say, “Mimi’s Café ‘n’ Coast Guard.” This sets up the key scene of defiance where Miriam gets to bark at The Chief about sending her fiancée to his death and he gets to bark back. This is where the direction and screenplay get sloppy; this is supposed to be a defining feminist moment in a male dominated world, but it has the opposite effect – Miriam loses the shouting match and then chooses to show her independence by storming out of Mimi’s Café coatless and then driving directly into a snowbank. If you wanted to make a statement about women’s rights, director Craig Gillespie, this was not your finest hour.

The Finest Hours shines from the topside half of the Pendleton, where the remaining crew debate how to save the own skins without a captain or a vessel that will stay afloat for more than a few hours. Relatively loathed engineer Ray (Casey Affleck) reluctantly takes charge; he’s acknowledged as the one who knows the boat best. His idea? Steer directly into a sand bar if they can find one … and if they can figure out how to steer what is now a giant watery bathtub of death. Oh, and Cap’n Kirk lost his compass. And night has fallen. Crazy, right?

You’ll notice “romance” isn’t among the tags for this film; I think imdb made the right call as the romance here is piss poor. And the handling of Miriam was obviously no Holliday. But the dramatic rescue and two independent sets of crews working towards one goal compensated a great deal. Not a perfect picture, not anywhere close … but this is exactly what 13 Hours should have been — a celebration of life and dedication and grit, not a hateful dick-measuring contest.

♪While there is time
Let’s go out and save every man
If you plot course
I will let you in on the plan
We will sail this death raft right into the void
We must pretend that we can
Defy the sea on celluloid

The finest hours keeps showing through
I hope it ends by hour two
The finest hours, how could I be
Already late for Panda 3? ♫

Rated PG-13, 117 Minutes
D: Craig Gillespie
W: Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
Genre: Military rescue … the good kind
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: U.S. Coast Guard
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Poseidon

♪ Parody inspired by “The Finer Things”