Starring Chris Pine and Casey Affleck. Rated G. Now playing.

As much as he’d probably enjoy cutting loose with a demented freak show like the one he provided Joe Carnahan in Smokin’ Aces, Chris Pine finds his niche here as a sweaty, determined ship captain who prevails against all odds, especially when underestimated by a character played by Eric Bana.

Warming us up for his return later this summer in Star Trek Beyond, Pine plays a far more subdued and awkward hero in this dramatization of the SS Pendleton rescue of 1952. A tiny Coast Guard cutter, led by Boatswain’s Mate Third Class Bernie Webber, went out in impossible seas to help an oil freighter that a gale had cracked in half. Certain death awaited all in the stormy seas of Cape Cod in the winter.

Given that Disney did not call this movie The Tragic Hours, the conclusion is perhaps not as interesting as the presentation. The Pendleton set is huge. The storm and weather effects are convincing and the necessary computer graphics assistance is not terrible, but acting is what sells the desperation. Pine and Casey Affleck play similar types, tongue-tied youngish men who rise above fear to throw their considerable marine skills into finding the Pendleton and keeping the ship afloat long enough to be rescued, respectively.

This is corny, old-fashioned adventure stuff, down to the hero being so diffident that he seems overwhelmed by his future bride (Holliday Grainger, dazzling as Miriam Webber). Then again, it’s January. And corn is delicious.