Based on a true story, The Finest Hours is set mostly in winter of 1952, where, off of the snowy coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, an oil tanker called the SS Pendleton would be split in half due to a vicious nor-easter and massive 60-foot swells, with one half sinking immediately to the bottom of the ocean, while the other half sinking much more slowly, with the thirty-three men on board desperate to try to figure out a way to stay alive in the freezing, turbulent chaos, hoping to figure out a way to run the half-ship aground until they can be rescued. Chris Pine stars as Bernie Webber, the meek Coast Guard recruit assigned to try to mount a four-man rescue mission in a small 36-foot craft through the heart of the storm and whatever men he can find back to shore.