The Finest Hours - C+

Chris Pine

Rated PG-13, 109 minutes

Disney's bland, earnest new fact-based action drama "The Finest Hours" tells the worthy story of a daring rescue of a sinking tanker by the Coast Guard in New England. The realistic action scenes are well-handled in "Perfect Storm" mode, though a creaky offshore personal story nearly sinks it. In February, 1952 a massive storm in Massachusetts splits the tanker SS Pendleton in two, trapping more than 30 sailors inside the tanker's sinking stern. Pendleton Engineer Ray Sybert (a mumbling Casey Affleck) bravely takes charge to organize a strategy for his fellow survivors. Meanwhile, Coast Guard Officer Bernie Webber (a wide-eyed Chris Pine) takes three men on a lifeboat to try and save the crew against seemingly impossible odds. Based on the non-fiction novel "The Finest Hours: The True Story of the U.S. Coast Guard's Most Daring Sea Rescue," by Casey Sherman and Michael J. Tougias and directed by "Fright Night's" Craig Gillespie, "The Finest Hours" is most memorable for the action-packed visuals, and less so for the middling, weak storyline that seems like filler in between the more exciting moments of the movie. The story is a true one, and the film is remarkably true to many of the details of the actual rescue, and likely less so when dealing with the stale, predictable personal life of Webber and his soon-to-be wife, played with vanilla appeal by "Star Trek's" Pine and "Cinderella's" Grainger; Grainger's role is a non essential, slightly annoying one, given that most will care less when and how the two met or of their impending marriage - let's see some of those waves that Disney has paid so heavily for. "The Finest Hours" also misuses a terrific actor in Eric Bana as the chief Coast Guard Officer in charge of the rescue operation, mainly because it seems to minimize his role to focus on the survival stories of Sybert and Webber. Instead of the dull personal drama, 'Hours" could've also focused on the fact that the Coast Guard actually saved men from two different tankers that split on the same day in the terrible storm, both the Pendleton and the Mercer, and while Mercer is given mention here, the focus is on the larger rescue of the Pendleton, a truly remarkable feat. "The Finest Hours" is a modestly entertaining effort that's best when focused on the rescue, and not on the offshore personal lives of the men.