Studio-financed dramas based on real-life heroism stories are a dime a dozen. We’ve all seen a million of them and pretty much know beat-for-beat how they operate, which is pretty much the same way all Hollywood blockbusters operate. (“Here comes the part where the handsome white man beats impossible odds and saves everyone!”) One always hopes, when one of these incredible-true-story cash-ins comes along, that the filmmakers seize the opportunity they’re given and actually do something interesting and artful.

Regrettably, the opportunity is typically squandered, and such is the case with The Finest Hours, a decent dramatization that’s too restrained and measured to be interesting. A product of Disney, the Craig Gillespie-directed thriller is inspired by the efforts of a handful of Bostonian U.S. Coast Guard rescuers who save around thirty men from a ravaged oil tanker in the middle of the stormy North Atlantic. Such a story sets the foundation for the bevy of visual effects teams to go absolutely ham with digital rain and pummelling waves and sweeping views of raging sea storms. The CGI maelstrom indeed looks pretty impressive, but it’s all stuff we’ve seen before in other, better movies of the same ilk. Plus, oddly enough, despite the chaos surrounding our plucky heroes, it never quite feels like they’re in all that much danger.

In February 1952, an oil tanker was literally ripped in two by a winter storm off the coast of Boston, prompting the Coast Guard to deploy a sizeable team of their best to search for survivors. In a cruel twist of fate, a second tanker in the area, the SS Pendleton, was split in half as well. With the Coast Guard crew’s numbers severely diminished, just four men are sent on a small motorboat to somehow navigate the crushing, freezing waters and locate the Pendleton and its survivors.

They’re led by Bernie Webber, played by an unexpectedly wooden Chris Pine. Webber’s a man’s man, but he’s shy and mildly awkward, socially. Pine doesn’t find any depth within the character, which is a disappointment, though his co-stars feel similarly docile (Ben Foster, playing one of the four rag-taggers, is also uncharacteristically sleepy in his performance). Half of the movie follows what’s left of the Pendleton crew, a collection of archetypes embodied, again, by talented actors seemingly on cruise control. Casey Affleck plays the crew’s impromptu leader, Raymond Sybert, a sort of ship whisperer who devises clever plans to keep the Pendleton afloat until help comes. Raymond, like Bernie, is a softspoken outcast of sorts, their respective journeys parallel and largely flavorless.

We don’t know much about Raymond’s background, but we learn a lot about Bernie’s in the film’s open, which flashes back to the meet-cute between he and his sweetheart, Miriam (Holliday Grainger, who has the lovely look of a classic Hollywood starlet). When Bernie’s out on his impossible rescue mission, we occasionally check in on Miriam, who’s worried into a frenzy, taking much of her frustration out on Bernie’s commanding officer (Eric Bana). Grainger’s gifted, and maybe the nicest thing about the movie is that she’s given ample time to explore Miriam’s different colors of desperation and anger and denial.

The Finest Hours‘ issues really boil down to the fact that it moves forward in such a sleepy fashion that the stakes seem to evaporate into nothing as we watch the actors navigate the uninventive script (by Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson) without any vigor or enthusiasm. The generic, sweeping score is relentless in how it dictates the tone of the scenes before the camera or the actors are given a chance to, which is another added frustration. It’s an incredibly bloodless affair, and the ending is so protracted and full of pointless, long stares that I was absolutely itching for the thing to be over.

“With the rich and mighty, always a little patience.”

That line – perhaps the greatest in a film full of great lines – can be heard in George Cukor’s The Philadelphia Story (1940), the crackling romantic comedy from Hollywood’s Golden Age. It refers to the patience needed by those dealing with the rich and mighty in matters pertaining to the common man, for the rich and mighty simply don’t understand those matters and need more time than most to figure them out. In The Riot Club, the subjects of the drama are rich and mighty, and they require patience from others when it comes to matters pertaining to the common man. Unlike the Golden Age classic, though, this film also requires patience from the viewer…patience at a level most viewers don’t have.

Alistair Ryle and Miles Richards (Sam Claflin and Max Irons, respectively) are freshman at Oxford University. Wealthy, smart, and ridiculously handsome, the young men who have it all are offered one more thing: membership in the Riot Club. Made up of male students with as much intellect, wealth, and looks as the two freshman, the Riot Club is so exclusive its ranks never rise above 10 in a given school year, and its debaucherous exploits are the stuff of legend. So elite are the club’s members that they routinely go on to become captains of industry and titans of politics.

Membership has more than its privileges, though; it also has its complications. Miles’ classmate and new love interest, Lauren (Holliday Grainger), is uncomfortable with some of the club’s initiation rituals, and more than a few people are troubled when the club’s annual dinner grows increasingly out of hand.

It’s ironic that The Riot Club, from director Lone Scherfig and screenwriter Laura Wade (who adapted her own stage play, “Posh,” for this script), is a film about excess, because the film itself is a victim of its own excessive attempts to be too many things. Ultimately it fails to succeed at being any of them, although remnants of things litter the film throughout.

After the filmmakers offer a quick origin tale of the fictitious club (in bawdy style), Act One has too much work to do: It must introduce and provide at least a little background on Miles, Lauren, and Alistair, as well as the eight current members of the Club; it must illustrate the affluence and recklessness of the Club members; it must establish and build the relationship between Miles and Lauren; it must create a rivalry between Alistair and Miles; it must set up for the gay Club member to show a romantic interest in Miles; and it must illustrate just how bonkers the Club’s initiation process is. That’s a lot to deliver, and other than how deftly the Miles/Lauren romance is established, everything else that happens, and everyone else onscreen, are flat sketches.

Where Act One is jam-packed, Act Two is bloated. As part of the new member welcoming process, the club goes out to dinner, and by “goes out to dinner” I mean engages in a bacchanal. This sequence is endless and, at points, rather vile. What is supposed to be some great commentary on class difference is really nothing more than rich boys behaving badly interrupted by occasional proselytizing. The celebration that starts as crazy devolves into a nightmare for the pub owner and eventually for the Club itself. It’s difficult to elaborate without spoilers, but it’s important to note that Act Two suggests key moments in Act One were designed solely to serve as plot-points for later in the story.

Act Three is accelerated, predictable, and wholly unsatisfying.

Despite its overall tenor, The Riot Club has its moments. Irons has a natural charm the camera picks up on immediately, even in smaller moments; the same can be said of Grainger. Together, they have undeniable onscreen chemistry that another filmmaker ought to showcase with material a little more suitable for romance. Also worth checking out is Sebastian Blenkov’s luxurious cinematography; he knows how to soften scenes to complement well the onscreen affluent lifestyle. In addition, some of the dialogue is wickedly funny.

A gorgeously shot film featuring a cast with cheekbones for days can only go so far on looks alone. Eventually it needs to back up its image with some substance, but the filmmakers get too caught up in portraying the Lifestyles of the Rich and Felonious and neglect critical storytelling and character development elements that leave the finished product as pretty and empty as the people it portrays.