2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang
I’ll never understand Hollywood.
The actual account of one brave
Coast Guard crew’s mission to rescue survivors of the maimed T2 oil tanker SS
Pendleton, undertaken during a raging nor’easter off the New England coast on
Feb. 18, 1952, is the stuff of unbelievable legend: a saga of bravery, luck and
utterly amazing persistence.
Give it to Disney, and it turns into
an overcooked, eye-rolling, melodramatic mess.
Granted, the ocean-bound storm
sequences are awesome and persuasive, the depiction of the crippled SS
Pendleton — literally torn in half by the storm — grimly unsettling on all
sorts of levels.
The problem is with character
behavior and interpersonal dynamics, as concocted by scripters Scott Silver,
Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson. Rarely have so many people behaved so childishly,
so stupidly, so TV soap opera-ishly.
And so bewilderingly.
For starters, it’s impossible to
get a bead on our primary hero, Coast Guard Boatswain’s Mate First Class Bernie
Webber (Chris Pine), who overplays a blend of shyness, uncertainty and
self-censure to the point that he seems incapable of completing a sentence, let
alone piloting a vessel. A failed previous mission apparently has left him riddled
with guilt, but that scarcely explains the degree to which he’s belittled,
teased and dismissed by both the local veteran fishermen, and his Coast Guard
colleagues at the Chatham, Mass., Lifeboat Station.
Then there’s his feckless boss,
Daniel Cuff (Eric Bana), assumed to be incompetent because his accent brands
him as having come from “somewhere else.” The accusation likely has merit,
because Bana plays the role with utter bewilderment, as if Cuff doesn’t even
understand how to use the station equipment. We’re supposed to believe this?
But nobody can top the childish
histrionics of Holliday Grainger’s Miriam, who frequently behaves like a
5-year-old having a temper tantrum. A confrontation between Miriam and Cuff is
so howlingly awful, orchestrated so poorly by director Craig Gillespie, that it
must be seen to be disbelieved.
We can’t really fault Grainger,
who’s obviously limited to her scripted lines, and the “guidance” from
Gillespie. Miriam nonetheless remains the worst “devoted gal left behind” that
I’ve seen in many, many years.
Nor is the laughably purple
melodrama limited to those on land. On board the remnants of the SS Pendleton, as
the surviving crew members try to stay alive in the storm-tossed stern section,
we’re frequently subjected to the whining, obstreperous objections of the
“token naysayer,” crewman D.A. Brown (Michael Raymond-James).
I don’t doubt that the terrified
men likely argued about the best method of staying afloat long enough to increase
their chances of rescue, but Raymond-James’ petulant, sneering contempt is so embroidered
that he should’ve been given a curled mustache and dubbed Snidely Whiplash.
It’s truly infuriating. We can
tell, even in this badly flawed adaptation of the nonfiction book by Michael J.
Tougias and Casey Sherman, that this should be a tense and triumphant saga ...
and yet Gillespie frequently works against his film’s best interests. This
isn’t his genre — he’s best known for quirky comedy (Lars and the Real Girl) and Disney’s recent “true-life” sports
saga, Million Dollar Arm — and he thrashes
about with the clumsiness of this story’s Daniel Cuff.
Sigh.
The prologue actually is rather
sweet, as Bernie and Miriam meet for the first time, quickly suffused by the
glow of love at first sight. They’re adorable in the conservative manner of an
early 1950s courting couple, Pine’s worshipful blue eyes nicely matched by
Grainger’s mildly saucy smile.
A few months pass; Miriam asks him to get married, a detail we’d have
thought private, but which inexplicably makes the rounds at the Lifeboat
Station, furthering Bernie’s apparent emasculation. Ah, but this is the night
of the storm in question, and the SS Pendleton already has been rent in two.
In point of fact, two T2 oil tankers broke in half in the
waters off this New England coast on this night, the SS Pendleton and SS Fort
Mercer; both were WWII surplus ships that never should have been kept in
service. Details of the SS Fort Mercer rescue efforts are relegated to radio
calls; this film concentrates solely on the SS Pendleton.
With the storm approaching
hurricane force, Cuff orders Bernie to take a tiny, 36-foot CG 36500 motor
lifeboat out to the SS Pendleton; the bulk of the Lifeboat Station men look the
other way as our hero requests volunteers. (Sadly, this detail is accurate.)
Bernie eventually casts off with just three men: Engineman Third Class Andy
Fitzgerald (Kyle Gallner), and Seamen Richard Livesey (Ben Foster) and Ervin
Maske (John Magaro).
The issue, which has so terrified
all the others, is the certainty that the massive waves will turn the little
boat into kindling, killing all on board, when it attempts to cross over the
offshore sand bar that surrounds their little community.
Meanwhile, on board the SS
Pendleton, first assistant engineer Ray Sybert (sulky Casey Affleck) — now the de facto senior officer — is doing his
best to hold both the crew and the ship together. When it comes to the latter,
ol’ Ray is more resourceful than Star
Trek’s Scottie. (Indeed, early on — pre-wreck — Sybert practically says, “I
dinnae know if the engines can take
much more, captain!”)
Affleck softly mumbles his way
through the entire film, although he does excel at the well-timed half-smile.
Scripters Silver, Tamasy and
Johnson grasp for parallel structure here: Both Bernie and Sybert are
soft-spoken; both struggle to win the respect of their comrades. And in both
cases, it’s a false premise; it’s blindingly
obvious that each is incredibly capable.
Back on land, Miriam amplifies
her credentials as a total nitwit by flouncing off into the storm, sans coat; running her car into a snow
bank; and then sitting quietly, presumably waiting to freeze to death. One
wonders if she parachuted in from the Moon, those few months back; how could
she live in such a region, and be so bone-ignorant about it???
And yet later, following the
community’s loss of power, Miriam is
the only person clever enough to shine car headlights out to sea, as a land
beacon? As if the locals wouldn’t have been doing that for decades, under such
circumstances?
Puh-leaze.
It’s impossible to believe that
Silver, Tamasy and Johnson were nominated for an Oscar, back in 2011, for the
vastly superior script for The Fighter.
I can only assume they’ve taken stupid pills in the meanwhile.
Pine does his best as Bernie, but
the aw-shucks routine doesn’t come easily to an actor better known for
hard-charging roles such as Jack Ryan and James T. Kirk. Foster, Gallner and
Magaro handle themselves well, as Bernie’s reluctant but equally determined
comrades; they, at least, look and feel like actual human beings.
Graham McTavish is solid as
Sybert’s muscular right-hand man; Abraham Benrubi’s “Tiny” Myers cheerfully
maintains the shaky morale, as the SS Pendleton’s cook. Keiynan Lonsdale also
does well as Eldon, one of the doomed ship’s juniors.
Bana, sadly, merely embarrasses
himself in a thoroughly thankless role. As for poor Grainger ... no more need
be said.
The technical credits are
terrific. Editor Tatiana S. Riegel keeps the ocean action taut and tense —
despite Gillespie’s frequent efforts to sabotage the result — and
cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe deftly blends his live water footage with
the impressively real visual effects. It’s not easy to frame all these
characters under such waterlogged conditions, so that we’re able to keep track
of everybody; Aguirresarobe is to be congratulated.
But the exceptional
behind-the-scenes work can’t surmount the often ludicrous dialog and sappy
tone. Ultimately, this film goes down with the rest of the SS Pendleton.
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