The Finest Hours

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Craig Gillespie/Starring: Chris Pine, Casey Affleck, Eric Bana, Ben Foster and Holliday Grainger

Based on the book: The Finest Hours: The True Story of a Heroic Sea Rescue, director Craig Gillespie's film tells the story of a T-2 oil tanker that literally split in half during a particularly savage sea storm in the Atlantic, which prompted a harrowing sea rescue. Braving terrifying, towering waves, the Coast Guard's rescue operation stands as one of the more amazing feats in American maritime history.

Having stated that, one might expect a movie depicting something so mind-boggling to be sufficiently nail-biting. Unfortunately, Gillespie's film falls well short of translating the story's more harrowing aspects. We're left instead with a technically accomplished action flick that would have been better off being projected from a plasma display than a movie projector. What was most likely a life-altering experience for all involved plays like a pedestrian sea disaster on-screen. One might find the story interesting and the visual effects impressive but if you're like me, you might also become drowsy; even during some of the film's climactic sequences.

The events depicted in the film took place off the coast of Massachusetts, early 1950s'. During said snow storm, the aforementioned tanker encountered violent, colossal waves. The tanker crew, led by Ray Sybert (Casey Affleck), watch nervously as the welded seam of the hull threatens to crack with the ship's every crashing descent from the mighty waves. When the seams does give, a powerful blast of water penetrates the interior, knocking crew-members against the bulkhead. Unthinkably worse, the ship actually splits in two which one crew-member discovers to his horror. While one half the ship sinks beneath the angry waves, Sybert and the remaining crew struggle to keep their half afloat. While the ship threatens to drift, sink or capsize, Sybert realizes their only hope is to steer what remains of the vessel onto a shoal, thus stabilizing it until help arrives.
Meanwhile, a Coast Guard crewman named Bernie Webber (Chris Pine) undertakes a dangerous and ill-advised mission to rescue the survivors of the tanker crew; well aware of the mission's slim chances for success. He and his small crew are nevertheless brave, knowing their small, Coast Guard boat must negotiate the roiling sea. Adding a wrinkle to Bernie's efforts is his fiancee Miriam (Holliday Grainger), who waits anxiously for him to return.

The story draws a parallel between the two crew chiefs as both Sybert and Bernie are burdened by the need to prove themselves as able leaders and earn their respective crews respect.
In an attempt to make the film more female friendly, the action is frequently interrupted to show us Miriam's anguish, as she clings desperately to the hope of her fiance's return.

The action is divided evenly between Sybert's attempt to ground the ship and Bernie's crazy brave effort to find the survivors, which seems hopeless in the unforgiving tempest.

Both narrative threads provide some minor thrills--accent on minor. The visual effects are effective enough to give a landlubber like myself an idea of what violent sea really means but the action didn't make me squirm. One might say; hey, cool CGI, but shouldn't this be more exciting? Knowing the story is based on fact was a sure tell that all would work out for everyone, which robbed the film of tension crucial to the narrative.

As mentioned earlier, I couldn't help but think the movie might be an okay late night, channel surfing stop but on a movie screen, it just seems several sizes too big.
The characters also fail to register as real people; they're more realized personality types. Eric Bana, Affleck and Pine aren't given much to interpret, character-wise. The same can be said for British actress Holliday Grainger; whose performance consists almost solely of teary-eyed stares into the oceanic horizon. Her character is really the producer's carrot to lure women into theater seats.

Craig Gillespie has done better work; the odd Lars and the Real Girl and the light and whimsical The Million Dollar Arm demonstrate his quirkier, more humorous trademark style. This film seems all wrong for him. This stuff is the domain of a seasoned hack like Michael Bay.

The men who lived through the horrific ordeal were undeniably at their finest. If only the filmmakers could claim the same. A better title for the film might have been; A Passable Two Hours.

Deliver Us From Evil

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Scott Derrickson/Starring: Eric Bana, Edgar Ramirez and Olivia Munn

Based on former NYPD officer Ralph Sarchie's book Beware the Night, Derrickson's film portrays Sarchie's experience with demonic possession while serving on the force. The always likeable Eric Bana plays Sarchie while a buff-looking Joel McHale plays his knife-wielding sidekick Butler. I'm more than a little weary of Based On horror flicks where we're supposed to believe the film subject's encounters have at least a whiff of reality behind them. Of course the director has no obligation to traffic in facts but it always seems a bit unfair to claim authenticity then play fast and loose with reality. No matter; it's always best to turn off one's skepticism and enjoy (if the filmmakers allow it). After-all, why do horror films need to be connected to real life events to be thrilling or scary? I think you get my point.

While Sarchie and Butler make the rounds, they are called to investigate a disturbing incident at the Bronx Zoo, where a mother has thrown her two-year old into the lion's pit. When they arrive, they learn the child was hospitalized and deemed in good condition but the mother; a highly-unstable-looking and tattered mess, sits on a park bench, awaiting questioning. When Sarchie tries to question her, she mutters the lyrics to the Doors song, Break on Through, though not with Jim Morrison's urgency. The woman becomes violent, biting Sarchie on the arm. While dealing with his injury, Sarchie and his fellow officers also see a shadowy figure inside the Lion's den who doesn't respond to repeated calls. When Sarchie gains access to the den to question the individual, he slips into the darkness. As he follows said person into the lion's inner-den, he comes face to face with two lions and narrowly escapes an attack.

The strange incident leads to a related-child abuse call which involves a man who seems to be connected to the Bronx Zoo incident. Later, Sarchie discovers the Zoo suspect and two other men were Iraq War veterans who now work as painters for the Zoo suspect's business. The leader of the outfit was on a painting job at the Zoo at the time of Sarchie's investigation. As Sarchie hunts down the leader, he meets a priest in plain clothes named Mendoza who believes the officer is on the trail of something sinister. Sarchie scoffs at talk of exorcisms and spirits but as the investigation unfolds, he begins to see the case does indeed involve a malevolent spirit; one the soldiers accidentally set free when entering a secret cave in Iraq.

The scares are very few and the stories and characters all have a patina of tiredness about them. I was more interested and impatient to learn what the soldiers actually encountered--expository information held from the audience until later in the film. Unfortunately it seems a little anti-climactic when it is revealed.

As brilliant as Friedkin's The Exorcist was and is, it has cursed every horror film dealing with demons and demonic possession ever since. A movie can't be made about the subject without tripping over Friedkin's film. Deliver Us From Evil even begins in Iraq, as The Exorcist did. Seemingly obligatory scenes where people speak in voices not their own, hiss and wear cuts and lesions on their bodies have all been done to bloody death. Why do demons bother possessing the bodies of inconsequential people? Why don't they ever inhabit the bodies of presidents and prime-ministers? One would think Satan and his minions would have a more pressing agenda than pestering a painting company. If the nether-world has time to kill, why not menace Starbucks' baristas or that annoying woman in the ads for Progressive Insurance?

As Mendoza and Sarchie get closer to the center of the mystery, the officer's wife and daughter become a target of the demonic painting company (I hate when that happens). The case then becomes personal for Sarchie as he desperately tries to find where the suspects are holding his family. The story culminates in a spirited (forgive the expression) exorcism, in which Sarchie and Mendoza hope to get the possessed group leader to reveal his wife and daughter's whereabouts; conducting the ritual inside a police interrogation room--a very implausible development but for the movie, kind of fun. The actual exorcism is the highlight of the film and very intense though not exactly scary. The same can be said for the rest of the movie. I found myself trying-not-very-hard to squelch yawns throughout much of the film. Maybe its exorcism-fatigue. I feel I've seen so many in the past decade I could conduct one myself.

Ancient Latin/Syrian writings found in the Iraqi cave are later explained as doors which evil entities can use to enter our world. The demonic group leaves said writings in various areas in the Bronx then paint over them to conceal the doors. One can see now why The Doors music was either mentioned or appeared on the soundtrack. This recalls the Denzel Washington movie Fallen where every spirit-infested individual sings the Stones' Time is on My Side. Didn't think I'd remember where you got the idea, eh Derrickson? I guess the damned have a thing for The Doors. I guess I'm one of them.

Eric Bana is good, as is his convincing Bronx accent, and the movie is far from campy but it just left me bored, bored, bored. Derrickson has dealt with demonic possession before in The Exorcism of Emily Rose so he's no stranger to the subject. He is deft at creating mood and providing a few (very few) frights but adapting a story that purports to be authentically supernatural isn't a free toll to chills and thrills. I stepped out into the multiplex lobby afterward, emerging not from a terrifying experience, but grateful the demon menacing Sarchie wouldn't see my glazed eyes and droopy eye-lids. Maybe I'll see him at Starbucks.