Two Really Good Stories and One Mediocre One

Rating: 7/10 (6 February 2016)

I'm a bit of a sucker for inspiring true stories so this is right up my alley. What the coast guard and the people on the tanker were able to do is amazing and really shows off just how resilient humanity can be. The movie has a few problems that keep it from being a really great film but it's still enjoyable enough and the plot is pretty good. Craig Gillespie directed this one and I thought he did a fantastic job with the scenes taking place at sea. Let's get to the story.
This film follows three different stories that are happening concurrently. An oil tanker breaks apart and an engineer named Ray Sybert (Casey Affleck) is working to get the tiny bit of ship that he and his men are on to a safe place to wait for a rescue. The Coast Guard sends out a rescue team led by Bernie Webber (Chris Pine) to try and find the ship and help the men that are still alive. While all this is going on, Bernie's fiancé Miriam Webber (Holliday Grainger) is trying to convince Bernie's commanding officer, Daniel Cluff (Eric Bana) to give the order to bring Bernie back home. She also learns more about what it's like to be married to a Coast Guard man.
The cast does a pretty good job for the most part but not everyone handles their accents very well. I thought Chris Pine gave a great portrayal as Webber and managed to give us the innocence of the character as well as the quiet determination needed to see everything through to the end. I also really enjoyed Casey Affleck's portrayal of Sybert. He's also a very quiet and determined character but he's more standoffish when compared to the affable Bernie. I thought Grainger also did a decent job but her scenes are some of the most dull in the entire film but that really isn't her fault. The one I had trouble with was Bana's portrayal of Cluff. His accent made me feel like the character was supposed to be a bad caricature but in a movie filled with so many real life people it just felt awkward to me, and this is from someone who ordinarily really likes Bana's work. I enjoyed everyone's portrayals for the most part though.
The scenes taking place at sea are easily the best part of the film. It actually comes off as terrifying what the sea can do and these people are just trying to avoid the brunt of it. Human ingenuity allows them to just barely survive but it's nothing but hollow victories until they finally make their way home. The scenes on land are done well enough but they tend to drag a bit compared to the action taking place on the ocean. One second we have people fighting for their very lives and desperately trying to come up with a way to survive for just a few hours more, and then we have poor Miriam hitting a snow bank. Don't get me wrong, hitting a snow bank sucks but, let's be fair, it is nothing like what the Coast Guard and the tanker crew are going through.
I feel like this movie is made up of two really compelling and exciting stories and one sort of interesting but kind of boring one. I wouldn't have cut it out entirely or anything like that but they could have probably shortened it up some to focus more on what we actually want to see. Still, I have to admit that I really enjoyed the film for portraying what it did. I just love these true stories about humans overcoming seemingly impossible odds. I would definitely give it a recommendation but remember that some parts can be a little slow.