Four buddies— — including NFL stars Marquis Cooper (Quentin Plair) and Corey Smith (Terrence Terrell ) — sailt out for a day of fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. A stuck anchor, a nasty storm and a capsized boat turn a bro getaway into a wet, freezing nightmare. Only one man makes it back to tell the tale.

Joe Carnahan is a guy who usually specializes in action movies like Narc, The A-Team and Boss Level. The men in his movies are rugged, the dialogue snappy, and the stunts in-your-face. Seeing him take on the real-life tragedy of Nick Schuyler feels like a bit of a pivot, even if it still fits into his wheelhouse of masculine endurance.

Based on Schuyler’s book, Not Without Hope tells the story of the 2009 tragedy in which a fishing trip turned into a desperate fight against the elements. If you’ve seen The Perfect Storm or Adrift, you know the beats: the hubris of men against nature, the one last trip vibes and the realization that the ocean doesn’t care about you or your Pro Bowl stats.

Nick (Zachary Levi), Tim(Josh Duhamel), Cooper and Smith head out to Cooper’s Hole, a prime fishing spot fifty miles offshore. They ignore the storm warnings. Then, the anchor gets snagged, they try to gun the engine, and the boat flips. Suddenly, our heroes are clinging to a hull in the middle of a storm.

The irony of the film and the real-life story is a bitter pill: the NFL players, Cooper and Smith, were in such peak physical condition that they had almost no body fat. When hypothermia set in, they had no insulation. They succumb to the cold and the sheer mental break of the situation, eventually drifting away into the dark.

As the Coast Guard (led by Timothy Close) hunts for them, the film cuts back and forth between the wives waiting by the phone and the men losing their minds in the water. In the end, it comes down to Nick and Will. In a moment of ultimate sacrifice, Will refuses the life jacket to give Nick a better shot. Nick survives not just because of his will to live, but because, ironically, he wasn’t as shredded as his NFL friends, giving him just enough biological fuel to last until the rescue helo spotted him.

The end credits show real-life footage of the men,a s well as Nick’s interview with Oprah to remind you that while the movie might feel like a template, the grief of these families was very real.