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Thursday, May 18, 2017

The Finest Hours (2016)

This movie is a Disney rendition of an actual event that happened.  In January, 1952 during a Noreaster storm off of Cape Cod, not one but two ships broke in half.  Navigation around the cape was an issue, and the first crew went the longer but safer way around.  The storm made travel very difficult to get to the second wreck, but despite that, the Coast Guard commander sent out a small rescue boat to attempt to rescue the remaining crew.  The movie apparently follows the trip out and the rescue.  It was harrowing to watch this tiny boat go through huge waves and manage to get over the land mass in the ocean.  Chris Pine plays the pay-the-book Coast Guard captain who maneuvers his tiny boat and despite there being more than 30 crew to rescue and their boat being for 12, including the four of them, he says "We all live or we all die, we are not leaving anyone."  He is a do-the-right-thing kind of guy.  And he plays that role well.  Casey Affleck plays the highly unpopular but very knowledgeable ship maintenance man who gets the wreck into a place where they can be rescued.  It is an entirely different role than others I have seen him in and he is also excellent.  This is still considered the most heroic successful rescue in Coast Guard history.  Very enjoyable.

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