Paramount+ sea-faring crime drama Finestkind is not a true story, but it may be a lot more personal than viewers think. Brian Helgeland is the driving force behind the project, writing and directing the film, and the screenplay is based on the creator’s own experiences growing up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and working as a commercial fisherman.
Is Finestkind based on a true story?
The film is not based on a true story but it does have elements of real life included in the screenplay. The movie’s plot follows brothers Tom and Charlie, who are brought together as adults one summer while working in the dangerous profession of commercial fishing.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Helgeland explained,
“The characters are commercial fishermen. My dad was a commercial fisherman and so was my grandfather and I fished when I got out of college. It was very surreal, almost like making a documentary.”
So the inspiration for the story came from the real-life experiences of the writer and director. Helgeland also grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which is also the primary location in Finestkind.
In an article he wrote for Time, Helgeland would explain the problems his Norwegian-born grandfather would face when he fell foul of a local gangster:
Oscar Helgeland, my Norwegian-born grandfather, moved there after the Stock Market Crash in 1929 put an abrupt end to his career as the captain of a wealthy Manhattanite’s Hudson River-based yacht. The story of him not understanding what a local mobster meant by “boat insurance” (and the subsequent explanation) was an early, oft-told tale among many I heard growing up.
This is very similar to the film’s premise, which finds Tom and Charlie having to make a deal with a Boston crime syndicate to accrue a hefty financial penalty imposed on their father’s boat, the titular Finestkind, when the vessel is impounded by the Coast Guard.
These stories from Helgeland’s childhood seem to have shaped Finestkind, molding the screenplay and influencing the tone of the final draft.
What else has Brian Helgeland directed?
Helgeland has been writing and directing since the mid-nineties, with an episode of classic horror anthology Tales From The Crypt in 1996. He would move into movies with Payback in 1999, then would work for the first time with Heath Ledger on A Knight’s Tale. In 2003, he would direct Ledger again in The Sin Eater. The director had originally envisaged Ledger in the film Finestkind, but his untimely death would lead Helgeland to look for other leads.
With the project being a long time in the making, Jake Gyllenhaal would also be attached, before that prospect was also scuppered. Helgeland would move on to other projects shifting his focus, with him breaking from the director’s chair until 2013 when he returned with the film 42. In 2015, he would bring the film Legend to cinemas, exploring the Kray twins, and that brings you up to speed.
It should be noted that Helgeland is also a prolific writer who has had many screenplays under his belt before Finestkind. He is probably most well known for 1997’s L.A. Confidential and in the same year Conspiracy Theory. He was also the writer on Mystic River in 2003, and Man on Fire in 2004. In 2010, he would work on Robin Hood, directed by Ridley Scott, and in 2020, he would write the Mark Wahlberg thriller Spenser Confidential.
