The type of heroic instance upon which this film is based would seem to promise a surefire, can’t miss, inspirational, dramatic film adaptation.  After all, if it really was the most daring rescue in the history of the United States Coast Guard, shouldn’t the movie deliver thrills, chills, suspense and excitement?  Nope.  Not when the Disney company becomes involved and tries to romanticize the event instead of playing it like the desperate thriller it ought to be.

Craig Gillespie’s film attempts — badly — to recreate snowy Cape Cod in February 1952, as a bad storm causes havoc along the coast and breaks not one, but two tankers in half, forcing the Coast Guard to work overtime.  The story fixates on the Pendelton, which stays afloat with 33 men only because one of them (Casey Affleck) has the smarts to keep the engine going and beach what’s left on a shoal until help can arrive.  Because so many others are out trying to rescue the other ship, the Mercer, it’s up to Bernie Webber (Chris Pine) and three cohorts to take a small launch to rescue anyone from the Pendelton.  It’s a true story, and it’s not a good story, it’s a great story.

Yet the film fails over and over again.  Characters fail to act like real people, even people in 1952 Massachusetts, where, evidently, life moved in slow motion.  Accents are deplorable, if not atrocious.  Seamen seemingly forget how to keep themselves alive and people on shore have to be led by Webber’s girlfriend (Holliday Grainger) before they think to light the harbor for the returning survivors.  The film is so full of pregnant dramatic pauses and slowly recognized paths to action that it’s amazing it runs under two hours (116 minutes).  Logic is lost and details reverse themselves at will; if things actually occurred as they do in the film then it’s a miracle anyone survived at all.

Of course, that’s the movie’s point.  It probably was a miracle that the tanker didn’t sink immediately, that the launch found the remaining half, that more than survivors were safely transferred onto a launch built for half that number, and that they returned to port safely.  It’s just a shame that a film which pays tribute to this tremendous accomplishment is so blandly unexciting, so misguidedly romantic, so purposely artificial.  It is poorly written, poorly acted and poorly directed.  What a waste.   ☆ 1/2.  16 February 2016.