An adventure drama with sea legs, a story of heroism steeped in period detail, played with sympathy and stoicism by people who respect such old fashioned virtues.

If The Finest Hours is light on surprises it’s still heavy on suspense, as the script by Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, and Eric Johnson treats each new obstacle in Bernie and Ray’s paths as a new brainteasing puzzle with an impossible solution.

An old-fashioned tale of heroism in the face of insurmountable odds, The Finest Hours is never less than aggressively hokey and manipulatively sentimental — and, in the end, better off for it.

Drama is one thing. Resonance is another. Without digging deeply enough, "The Finest Hours" seems content to capture the former while ignoring the latter.

An intermittently affecting, sanded-edge adventure that feels as if it trundled off the studio production line back when Eisenhower was in office.