iTunes Exclusive Episode The Finest Hours

The following is a sooner orgator production.
Good morning
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I TUNE ZEXCIRUSI.
Welcome.
My name is Rob by the Executive Producer of the Clubhouse podcast and I have a cousin who is
in the Coast Guard and I am very proud of all the work she does out there on the open
seas.
But I am not alone for this particular podcast.
Joining me across the desk as he tends to do is my co-host and a Navy veteran.
And has probably been on rough seas at least once in his time.
He is Chad Walker.
Oh yeah, I could tell you some stories, my wife.
I am sure you could.
Also joining us for this is the official fact checker of this show and a man that can name
all seven seas.
Because I have seen them do it.
You may know him as fun, don go, but his mom and even don Ford, I am going to call him
Don Ford welcomes her.
Pacific Atlantic.
Arctic.
Indian.
Um.
I have I have for four.
You know what?
I'll give you credit.
I got four of them.
Because you didn't even look at your phone.
You just rattle them off.
Yeah.
Whenever we do one of these, it is normally to review something and this is no different.
We are here today to review the latest film from director Craig Gillespie.
A little bit of a departure for him.
Here's his directing resume.
If you remember the Billy Bob Thornton film Mr. Woodcock, or he was the gym teacher.
He directed that, uh, Lars in the real girl, which got a lot of critical acclaim a couple
of years ago.
The United States of Terra, uh, right night, million dollar arm.
And now he directs the true story of, was it the greatest small, uh, small boat rescue
in history by the Coast Guard in 1952.
It is called the finest hours.
And it does start Captain Kirk himself, Chris Pine, also Holiday Granger, Casey Affleck,
Ben Foster, Eric Banner, Graham McTavish, the great, Graham McTavish.
Yes.
Who you, you might not, you know the name, because he does a lot of great voice work.
But he's also been in the Hobbit, but were you aware, sir?
Oh, yeah.
I know what you're going to say.
That he is Loki on Avengers Earth's Mindsier.
Oh, no.
I thought you were going to hit me with he was, uh, the manager of, uh, a Donna's Creed
to Ponyton and Creed.
Also, uh, 24 veteran as well.
Oh, really?
Yep.
No, no, no, no, no, no, a co-vitch in day eight.
All right.
Okay, so Empire is wondering, Artic Ocean and Artic Ocean Indian Ocean, North Atlantic South
Atlantic, you're a Pacific South Pacific.
I forgot to, now you looked it up.
I know, I forgot that there's an North and South Pacific, but before I get to begin
this whole thing again, we have to thank Jenna and we thank Susan, airbait, Susan Jacobs
and Dizzy.
So great to us.
We love those guys.
And we can see this in 3D.
Oh, yes, we did.
Which was a thing.
So thank you so much for the invite.
Yeah, they had to move a couple of mountains.
And I've got to listen for putting in the effort.
Yeah, they did a great, great job by everybody involved.
So let's talk about the finest hours.
Here's what you need to know.
It's 1952.
Chris Pine plays a man by the name of Bernie Webbae, because it's in Boston.
They do not have transformers in a band.
And we are thankful for that in Paris Tech.
So again, this is the true story.
Bernie is a guy who is in the Coast Guard there and has had some rough luck with rescues
in the past.
So he's a little gun shy and the storm of the year comes through town.
Not only does this storm split one tanker in half, it splits two.
But he is cast by his boss, played by Eric Banna, Daniel Cluff, to try to go rescue half
of this ship where there's about 32 guys on board, including Ray Sebert, played by Casey
Affleck, and Greg McTabash.
We talked about him a bit because he plays a big part of this too.
That's Frank Fato.
They call it pops.
Pops.
Or pop.
And so you have two different, actually three different stories going on.
At one time, you have Bernie and his crew of three headed out to try to find this boat.
You have the guys that are on the boat.
And then you also have the lady love that he has left behind for this mission, Miriam, played
by Holiday Granger.
Runs about an hour, 50.
Chat, let's start with you because this is kind of, is in your wheelhouse a little bit
this story.
What did you think about the way this story was told?
The way the story was told, the overall structure and pacing of it seemed a little bit
off to me.
Okay.
Because, and I think you will, you and I both agreed on this, that it was a little
too front-heavy with the setup, agreed that they probably could have carved 20 minutes
off the front end and put it on the back end.
Or done it in flashback, something, and give us a little bit of back story as to why
Bernie is so timid, and I mean, he's basically, there was too much of some story
fronts and not enough of others for me.
Yeah, he's like, you know, it's, it's, it's made fairly obvious quickly that he's kind
of like the town whipping boy because of some horrible mistake that he made, and there's
all these hints and illusions made to it, but no one really comes right out and says
until way late, and I'm like, they could have shown us this, uh, done a little bit more
of fair portrayal of what he, what he went through basically, because he kind of gets
a raked over the calls repeatedly, he gets picked on and almost bullied, and it's almost
like he's wrestling with these demons, and he feels like in order to put this to bed,
he's willing to put his life on the line to do this, seemingly impossible thing to do,
and it almost seems like a fool's errand, um, and he, he does it without even thinking
about it. Don, I was kind of surprised, because that's how the trailer is, and I didn't know
that this was set in the 50s. It looked like it was more like from the 80s, really, which kind
of surprised me, but, um, you know, that's some trailer as you kind of look at, and but not this
one I didn't really look intensely on, but like you're saying with the pacing with Chad, I agree
a hundred percent. Um, I thought it just seemed to pace a little on and off. It seemed for some
points it seemed to Drake. You got the big climax right up front where the ship breaks in
half, and the rest of the film is just, you know, should we go out? It's just a lot of talking on
sure, which I think they spent too much time on. For me, I take the free way to work every day,
so do I, and I, you know, I want to get there as quickly as I can, of course, safely as I can,
but you know those people that drive in the left lane, but they act like the world is
their school zone. Yeah. That is how this film went for me. I, this was an hour, 46 that felt like
three and a half hours. The pacing on this is so slow, but you spent the first 25 percent of this film
just talking about the Miriam Burnie courtship. That's not what I came to see. I came to see these
guys doing this active bravery. If you want to start this, start the movie by, by them going out
and then tell some of this in flashback, tell me more about why he's so gunshot, like you said,
Chad. Yeah. Show that a bit in the first 10 minutes. But I mean, I looked down and I was like, okay,
we're probably 40, 30, 45 minutes. We were 15 minutes in. Wow. I was like, this, this thing has
got to pick up speed, and it never did for me. It was just like, there was a lot of me going,
where is the chase and how can I cut to it? I think just three big events. One at the beginning
when the ship cracks, which is, you know, I'm not sure the free, which looked amazing. Yeah. And then
there's two others at the end and one kind of, I'm going to say is with the waves. You know,
and that's it. That's, that's the three big, he who rides on this whole thing. And again,
there were great performances in this. Yes. Like Chris Pine showed me a whole different side of him
that I didn't think he could pull. Because we're used to seeing him in these more,
hey, hi, how you doing? My show is fantastic. Type guy. Yeah, what's going on? He's,
ladies, ladies, anybody? It's a complete departure from him. He's, he's really making, and my
very understated. And from within the first five minutes, I was like, Pine's great in this.
He really is. He really, really is good in this. And his, his chemistry with, with holiday
Granger, I thought was good. If, if I've got to say something about performance, who did Eric
ban a make man? Explain yourself there ever since Hulk, which I don't blame him for. I blame
him. He just hasn't had that real good chance to have that role that's going to get the wheels
back on this thing. He's not in this thing very much. And he's a talented at. He's a great actor.
And I'm a huge fan. But then it was like, he's supposed, I guess he was supposed to be from
somewhere in the south, because at one point he says, you know, are you just saying that because
I'm not from around here. But then there's certain things he said that sounds like he says
I'm in a Boston accent. And I was very confused. And he didn't get to really stand out
much, because his parts were uneventful when it really comes down to it. I mean, I thought,
I thought Casey Affleck was great about having him play guy from Massachusetts, probably not
much of a strategy. Real method acting there. His role that he played, he, I thought he played very
well. And he also played it very understated where it's like, he's kind of this guy that's
thrust into this situation where he's basically got 32 people's lives in his hands.
And that is not when he signed up for him. He's also kind of bullied by some of the crew too.
Yeah, he needs a whole ton of resistance. If I give a shout out though, mine was to
Graham McTavish. I thought. Oh, that's pops. I thought he was great. This is what he's
holding on. Say you were Abraham, uh, Ben Ruby as the, the cook or whatever. Mm-hmm.
Even though they're not me. It was, they weren't sure we know him from Chad.
Well, ER is the first thing that comes to mind for me. He played Kubiak on Parker Lewis,
can't lose one of my favorite shows of the 90s. And I've always thought he could be Ethan
Suplees like brother twin brother or something if you wanted to put those due to get. And I always see
him and go Kubiak now. See, I never watched that show. Oh, you need to go back and find that show.
I thought Ben Foster was really, really good in this as well. Well, do I know him from Ben Foster?
Yeah. He, oh, would you know, he's, he's in the upcoming Warcraft movie.
Let's see. He played Lance Armstrong in the new program. I don't think you've seen that. No.
Uh, he was in the lone survivor. Ain't nobody's saints.
Uh, let's see. What else would you do? He was in the remake of the mechanic.
Uh, let's see. 30, 30 days of night did a couple episodes of my name is Earl.
Oh, he was angel and expend the last stand.
Did so. Oh, really. Yeah. Did some work on six feet on her. He was in alpha dog. This guy's got stuff on.
He's got skins on the, was in the, was in the Punisher. And oh, four.
Couple episodes of Boston public. So he's got some skins. But I thought he was really, really good in this.
My major, I don't want to reiterate my major point, but because there's a couple of things I want to talk about.
The way Gillespie shot this. I thought was an interesting choice. And I don't know if you, I knew
and I got a chance to talk about this. But I talked about this with a friend of the show Kevin Daniels,
who's the co-host of the movie brothers and was honored to have him with us for this screening.
Make sure you check them out. The movie brothers on YouTube.
BRU T H A S Children.
Gillespie shot about half of this movie very, very tightly framed.
And which almost gave me claustrophobia attacks. Because trust me, because this is,
and because he wanted you to understand the close quarters these guys were in. And to shoot it that way,
everything, especially in the sequences, either on the rescue boat or on the, on the, on the tanker,
everything shot very, very tight. There's not a lot of wide shots. And I think that was a
conscious decision that I thought paid off. Yeah. That's, that's a lot of handheld steady
cam shots in that tanker. Because there is not a lot of room to turn around if they actually built
it, you know, inch for inch real for real. Which you'd almost think they had to to give the actors
the right motivation to. Right. I love the whole look of the film though. I'll say that a heartbeat.
Yeah. Some of those shots I did from the ocean. It looked so real life. I was so impressed with that.
Oh, believe me. Take it from my guy who was, who was in the, on the steering bridge when something
similar. I mean, nothing nearly this catastrophic. But I mean, we, we hit rough season the North
Atlantic one one time. I can 91. And we had to pull into Germany because we lost half the life rails
on the bow of our ship. And I'm on a 350 foot God in missile destroyer. I mean, we hit some
seas that we came completely out of the water. We ramped out of that thing like evil,
can evil and can crashing back down. And all we saw kind of like them in the, in the rescue
about going through. Yes, going through the sandbar. That happened. I imagine a 350 foot long.
No, thank you. Warship doing that. I mean, and I was, and I was on the throttle at the time.
And, and what, I, I think I really dug visually. And I don't know if they were going for this,
but it's hard for me to believe they weren't. If you remember when we were young young people,
many moons ago, Disney did a lot of rescue sea castaway type films. That was like the
thing for them in the 70s. Really? There's quite a few of them. And the only ocean film in
to be, and it comes to my mind is 20,000 leaks under the sea. But, and when you go back and you
watch those movies and you see how they shoot them on the boat, some of the shots in the rescue
boats specifically were very reminiscent of that 70 style of Disney filmmaking.
Which I was kind of like, you know what? That's kind of a nice little nod. And I also kind of
helps put it in better framework within the historical significance of it. So I thought that was good.
The CGI work they did use. I thought was amazing. Especially, especially as Donald was talking about
when they, when the front half of the boat sinks in the beginning. Yeah. Like, I, my, I think
my jaw like hit the floor like this is impressive. Yeah. I looked around at people because I know
that I myself was like, jawed when that happened, especially with the 3D. Yeah.
I thought that this was really well done. But the pacing on this is what kills it.
What about the 3D? Do you think it was their needed extra necessary, not necessary, enhanced,
didn't I? I think you'd be okay either way. I don't think you lose anything by seeing it into
the 3D. But as I've said in other reviews, you could use certain sequences if you were trying to sell
home theater equipment, especially 3D TVs. You could play a couple of sequences from this movie and sell it.
Yeah, because I put my written review of WWE WWE. That's a cup of Spacastock.
I want a WWE is what's almost our website. Yeah. I kind of put on there that I don't think the 3D
was needed. I really think that that much enhancement out of it. I agree. That's what I said.
I don't think maybe it was when the ship was sinking the first half, but beyond that,
it really didn't help much. I don't think. I mean, some of the sequences were the rescue boat
was going out and dealing with it. But don't be wrong. It was great to see you. It was gorgeous. But yeah,
I don't know that Chad and I think you'd probably agree. I don't know that I'd go out of my way to see
him through. No, but if it was there and I had nothing going on, okay, we can do that, you know.
Again, I'll quote Mr. Clay Harrison. It's really never made the story back. It's true. It
might have made the movie better, but it never made the story back. Is there anything else we want to
cover for we get to the final analysis here? No, just, you know, if they can somehow tighten at the
pacing on this thing, I think they'll have a better film on their hands. I agree. Done. I, I kind of
agree with you guys too. Before we finish the whole thing, though, again, we got to think Gen S,
Susan, everybody at Susan Jacobs is so great to us and we're so appreciative for that. Thank you so
much, guys. Yeah, we know you went through a lot to make this happen, guys. So kudos to you.
The way we do the final analysis on this show, we're not going to give you thumbs-up thumbs-down.
We're not going to give you a ranking, we're not going to give you a letter grade. Our audience whom
we affectionately refer to as the Empire, they like us go a little bit deeper. And so we will.
Two questions. Question number one, would you see this film again? If the answer's no,
then we're done here. The answer's yes, I want to know how far you're willing to go to see it.
Will you pay full price in the theater? Twilight show? Maybe a matinee? Maybe early morning on a weekend?
Maybe a second run at the dollar theater? Maybe you'd wait for it and go get it from a red box
or stream it through Netflix? Or maybe you wait for it on cable? Don, would you see this again?
Yeah, that's where you want to go. I would recommend a matinee. Okay, so you would go in the theater.
Yeah, I would go in the theater as a matinee. All right, shall I? Would you see it again?
More likely, yeah. How far? Uh, matinee at best. For me, I would watch it again,
but I think I'd wait for it on cable. I just, the pacing on this thing killed me.
But you love just about everything else. Yeah, I mean, everything else. The performances were great. The look was great.
I thought Gillespie did some really great bold choices, but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it.
And I've got a pretty decent home theater system, and I think it probably would look and sound great on that.
So there's that. All right, let's do the plugs.
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Sure, the parker is on Pinterest because we're morally obligated to say that. And what did Gillespie
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for Don, for chat, for the empire, I'm Rob. Clubhouse is closed. Now for any palm or you could
cast her in this and it would it would work. I'm just saying the preceding was a sooner or
Gator production. Why? Because I have to.