Somehow “The Finest Hours” manages to be both a digital-heavy 21st-century effects picture and an old-fashioned Hollywood flick. If it weren’t for the impressive 3D and splashy computer graphics, you’d think it had been made in 1952.
1952 happens to be the year “The Finest Hours” is set. It’s based on the true story of an improbable Coast Guard rescue in the wintry waters off Massachusetts.
The film opens with some dewy moments between Coast Guardsman Bernie Webber (Chris Pine) and ladylove Miriam (Holliday Grainger). These scenes are so chaste they seem to come from another world, and Grainger (star of “The Borgias”) looks uncannily like she just stepped out of an early-Fifties magazine ad for Coca-Cola.
Then the storm hits. Off the shore of Cape Cod, this February gale wallops a tanker, the SS Pendleton. A no-nonsense engineer, Ray Sylbert (Casey Affleck), is left more or less in charge of what remains of the ship.
Without much hope of being rescued, Sylbert and the survivors try to navigate the Pendleton onto a sandbar. Meanwhile, Webber and three volunteers clamber into a flimsy-looking rescue craft, hoping to locate the wreck.
Actually, they know they’ll be lucky to survive crossing the bar offshore. This sequence, drenched in water both real and computer-generated, is one of the movie’s most exciting.
Director Craig Gillespie — whose career has ranged from the indie-quirk of “Lars and the Real Girl” to the Disney likability of “Million Dollar Arm” — brings just the right touch of gravity to the proceedings.
There are surprisingly few groaners in the dialogue, even if the cast must struggle with New England accents. And sometimes no dialogue is best; a great deal of time is spent looking at Webber and his fellow Guardsman (a restrained Ben Foster) standing at the helm of their boat, grimly staring into the cold night.
Pine tamps down his sense of humor, but that’s probably understandable under the circumstances. Affleck has a good part, as an anti-social gearhead who isn’t too good at inspirational speeches but has innovative ideas about how to save the ship.
The big scenes are truly big. I saw the film in 3D, but the movie will play just as well without it. Once in a while, Gillespie brings off a piece of spectacle, such as the moment when a Pendleton crewman runs outside and abruptly realizes that half the ship is missing. At those moments, as square as some of this movie is, “The Finest Hours” raises some real shivers.
“The Finest Hours” (3 stars)
Part 21st-century effects movie, part old-fashioned Hollywood flick, this account of a 1952 Coast Guard rescue raises some real shivers. Chris Pine and Casey Affleck lead the cast through the tense rescue of a tanker grounded off the Massachusetts coast in a winter storm.
Rating: PG-13, for violence
Showing: Alderwood, Cinbebbar, Everett Stadium, Galaxy Monroe, Marysville, Stanwood, Sundance Cinemas, Thornton Place, Woodinville, Blue Fox, Oak Harbor Plaza
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