Test your sea legs until it runs out of steam.

Rating: 6/10 (7 July 2016)

Starts its engines slow but is a hell of a ride once she's fired up and gets going. Obviously the studio was bent on spending its budget to create a cinema experience so immersive that frankly, it feels like I'm still seeing waves on the screen as I'm typing out this review.
A tale based on a real life coastal rescue, the 50's world has been beautifully restored and provides warmth as bleak coastal towns withstand the storm. It's the kind of a movie that takes you on a ride however, the characters only have a hand in holding the tiller but not the way the direction of the current is headed.
Bernie's case for example, he goes through some serious stress emotionally and physically but gets extremely lucky once already but when the ultimatum of making his return journey uses the same formula, you can't help but notice that the studio just ran out of steam by this point to be able to offer a proper closure as to the whole of the journey we've just witnessed. Who could possibly blame them though, when the sailors are no longer in danger and it's over surely we can pat ourselves on the back and head on home. I wish it is as simple as that. and in a way it is, as the movie offers nothing left to be picked up from it the experience. Queue obligatory cuts of factual photos, which falls way short in terms of doing any justice to honour the man, and what we must take home is a mild nausea and the eerie feeling that someone high up in the studio was playing God because we are thankful to be back but not for its providence.
A highly enjoyable movie whose fuel is all but burnt on that big ride out that the journey back seems to never have surfaced in the thoughts of the producers. Had it not been based on a true story we may have never come back.
For those that want more intrigue than build ups, I also recommend The Deep (2012), about a fisherman to incredibly have survived a shipwreck in freezing cold waters.