Trailer
Plot summary
Bernie Webber is a crewman at Coast Guard Station Chatham on Cape Cod, engaged to a local girl, Miriam, and due to ask his commanding officer, Daniel Cluff, for permission to marry. On February 18, 1952, a nor'easter tears the oil tanker SS Pendleton in half off the coast. Most of the station is already at sea helping the damaged SS Fort Mercer, so Bernie is sent out in the motor lifeboat CG 36500 with volunteers Andrew Fitzgerald, Ervin Maske and Richard Livesey. Aboard the tanker's sinking stern, engineer Ray Sybert takes charge of the surviving seamen and steers for a submerged reef where they might hold until help comes. Miriam, learning what Bernie has been ordered to do, drives to the station to demand that Cluff call the boat back.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Finest Hours (2016)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- What Webber, Livesey, Fitzgerald and Maske accomplished is still considered the greatest small boat rescue in Coast Guard history, and all four Coast Guardsmen were awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal for their actions.
- The film turned into an expensive misstep for Disney: in March 2016 Variety reported that the studio was expecting losses of around $75 million from it.
- Post-production lasted a year, with the film requiring nearly 1,000 visual effects shots; Moving Picture Company was responsible for creating the majority of them.
- Robert Schwentke was hired to direct the film in May 2013, but left the project to direct The Divergent Series: Insurgent and was replaced with Craig Gillespie in April 2014.
- Portions of Carter Burwell's score were replaced with music composed by Philip Klein, who had served as arranger on Burwell's score, and Burwell chose to include two of Klein's tracks on the album.
SPOILER
Two months after the rescue Bernie and Miriam married, and they remained together for fifty-eight years until Bernie died in 2009 at age 81.
