The Finest Hours

2016
PG-13
1h 57m

IMDb RATING

6.7/10

72K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

Play trailer1:46

Disaster Action Drama History Thriller

The Coast Guard makes a daring rescue attempt off the coast of Cape Cod after a pair of oil tankers are destroyed during a blizzard in 1952.The Coast Guard makes a daring rescue attempt off the coast of Cape Cod after a pair of oil tankers are destroyed during a blizzard in 1952.The Coast Guard makes a daring rescue attempt off the coast of Cape Cod after a pair of oil tankers are destroyed during a blizzard in 1952.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.7/10

72K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

4,663

1,077

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 2 wins

Trivia
It is implied that the captain of the Pendleton was responsible for the sinking because of an error in judgment. The Pendleton was a T2 style tanker that, as with other "liberty ships," was built in haste during the Second World War to support the Allies in Britain. The limited building facilities resulting from the rush of shipbuilding resulted in the T2 ships being built in two sections (bow and stern) and later joined at the middle. They had a known issue in that they tended to break in half when facing the combination of cold seas and extreme weather. By insisting on maintaining 7 knots, the captain was hoping to reach a port as quickly as possible, in order to limit the amount of stress on the ship and to avoid metal fatigue that might lead to a break-up. He was balancing the threat of a broken weld versus breaking the ship in two. If he had complied with the engineer's request and dropped to 3 knots, the break-up would have happened anyway, but farther out to sea. It is likely that, while losing his life and that of the other seven crewmen in the bow, his decision made it possible for the lives of the other half to be saved. In contrast to what has been reported elsewhere, the broken weld had little to do with the ship being broken in half. Rather, the weld broke due to the same strain that caused the ship to break in half.

Goofs
The engine room was not that of a T-2 tanker. T-2 tankers were turbo electric drive which means a steam turbine drives a generator which powers a 6000 hp electric synchronous AC motor. T-2 propulsion is controlled by levers which connect the motor to the generator and control the speed of the generator. If the seawater rose to the level shown in the movie, there would be no propulsion possible because all the necessary pumps and the main motor were located in the lower engine room and would have been submerged. Flooding of the boilers themselves would not have been an issue but the fuel pumps would also have been submerged.

Quotes
John Stello: The old man don't know what he is doing. He sends you out to die. You can't make it over Chatham bar on a day like this. You can't stay afloat with half a ship neither.
Bernie Webber: Well, Mr. Stello, in the Coast Guard to say you gotta go out. But they don't say you gotta come back in. That's regulation, you know.

Connections
Featured in Wazzu on Film: Kung Fu Panda 3 and the Finest Hours (2016)

Soundtracks
The Hucklebuck
Written by Roy Alfred, Andy Gibson, Albert Shubert
Performed by Frank Sinatra with Axel Stordahl and His Orchestra
Courtesy of Columbia Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

User reviews243

Review

Featured review

7/10

Edge of your seat action

The FINEST HOURS is a rip-roaring, edge of your seat action thriller that will keep you guessing all the way to the end.

There....that should get me on the poster.

That said, I will have to admit that I had low to middling expectations going into this film and it exceeded my expectation in almost every way.

Starting with the Cast. Chris Pine (good ol' Cap't Kirk) stars as Bernie Webber a mid-level Coast Guard officer who is flung into the forefront when an oil barge splits in half in very rough sees during a storm. Pine presents Webber not as a square-jawed hero, but a real person with doubts and insecurities but a strict code of ethics and when his Capt. (the always capable Eric Bana) sends him out for what could be a suicide mission, he goes out.

While Pine holds down half of this movie, Casey Affleck holds down the other half as the leader of the group of survivors on the oil tanker. Normally, I am not a big fan of Affleck's work, but in this movie, I sure am. He is a man of few words and tells much with his expression. If there is a "squared jawed hero" in this movie, it is Affleck.

These two are supported by a veritable who's who of "that guy" actors. Ben Foster, John Ortiz, Michael Raymond James and good ol' Abraham Benrubi are just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, of wonderful character actors filling the roles of other Coast Guard members and crewmen of the doomed ship.

Only Holliday Grainger as Pine's strong-willed fiancé fails for me, but I blame a weak written character more than her acting for that one.

But, make no mistake, it is the action that makes this movie exciting. From the opening where the oil ship splits in half through the attempt to get out to the ocean to find the doomed ship to the actual rescue itself, I was on pins and needles, literally vaulting myself up out of my seat to get over a wave at one point. Director Craig Gillespie, not known as an action director, does a nice job of leading us through these scenes, I am anxious to see what he takes on next. I hope it is another action flick.

Is it a great film? No. The opening (after the tanker accident) drags and the movie bounces around in tone trying to find out what kind of movie it wants to be, but once Pine and company goes out to sea to rescue, the movie zips along just fine.

7 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank (of Marquis)