The story of the real like 1952 rescue of the sailors on the SS Pendleton which is split in half by a huge storm and the front section along with all commanding officers and most communication methodology is lost but the survivors manage to delay the sinking of the rear half by steering the wreck onto a nearby reef which buys them some time so when word gets to the coast guard it’s a race to save these men before the rising water overwhelms the remainder of the ship.

The action is decent and some of the battles against the huge waves look good, with one of two exceptions, but it all reminded me of the 2000 movie The Perfect Storm yet it doesn’t get you as emotionally engrossed as the characters are very under played.

Eric Bana as Chief Warrant Officer Daniel Cluff is a fish out of water as the ranking official who doesn’t know the area of the hazards but we never really find out how this came to be and he is viewed as sending the men to their death on what is deemed a suicidal mission. Chris Pine as Bernie Webber is our central point and Pine does an okay job in portraying a shy and nervous character but his relationship with his soon to be wife Miriam (Holliday Grainger) just doesn’t invoke enough feeling to make you invest in the story but it was nice to see Pine show something a little different that his usual typecast. Most of the others cast come across as filler and it is only Casey Affleck as Ray Sybert who struggles to keep the survivors on the boat working together to keep themselves alive that shows any real semblance of character change and is given any semblance of character depth.

Perhaps if another film studio rather than Disney had made the movie it could have taken a bit of a darker tone and thus been a bit less ‘safe’ but instead the true peril of this heroic tale, of which I did not know about before I watched the film, never really comes across on screen so what should have been a heart-warming true life tale of heroism against terrible odds ends up feeling like another run of the mill rescue movie.

DJ Speaks Rating: 4.5 Out Of 10