Remember how I said Ford v Ferrari was a dad movie? Here's a mom movie. Clean-cut, appropriately dramatic, and zero controversy. The Pendleton, an oil tanker, breaks in half during a particularly vicious winter storm off the coast of Massachusetts in 1952. One half happens to have the engine room and at least a couple of empty ballast tanks so it's afloat, but not for long, and the 30-odd men left inside are facing their last moments. The U.S. Coast Guard station nearest has sent its bigger boat out to assist in the rescue of a second split tanker, so when the Pendleton's distress is finally noted, all that is left is a 12-man capacity headed by Bernie Webber (Chris Pine). Webber is already feeling pressured because this time the year before, he was unable to get out of the protected bar during a storm, and a fishing crew died. So he is determined to atone for that by completing this rescue.
This is based on a true story of one of the most daring small-boat rescues in the history of the Coast Guard. The movie does a great job of showing the scale of the storm so you can see the magnitude of what these men were facing. I've never been out to sea on anything smaller than a cruise ship so this was eye-opening for me. I love Chris Pine and Ben Foster, even if their accents were grating, and this was a much different animal than Hell or High Water for the pair. They are both great character actors, even if Pine is most often typecast as a pretty face.
It is pretty, tho.
The Finest Hours is currently streaming on Disney+ but who knows for how long since they've already taken it off and put it back on once.
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