When Roy Disney set out to make a documentary about a group of college-aged kids — all of them newbie mariners, one of them local boy and Punahou graduate Mark Towill — sailing across the Pacific for the first time, he wasn't fooling around.

He knew what he wanted — a good adventure story about overcoming obstacles — and he found the pieces to make the story work. And it would have worked had it not seemed so contrived, so … intentional.

Disney, an experienced mariner himself, essentially produced a reality show, with auditions (those trying out had to prove they were worthy of the task), eliminations (a group of 15 young adults was forced to choose which of their four friends got to stay behind) and that in-your-face camera work that we've grown so accustomed to since the dawn of reality TV. But a reality show does not a documentary make (and a documentary makes a pretty weak reality show), and nothing proves that more than "Morning Light."

The story follows 15 young adults, ages 18 to 23, who have signed on to sail a 52-foot sloop in the Transpac, the Olympics of open-ocean sailing competitions, which requires competitors to sail 2,500 miles from California to Diamond Head.

The 15 were chosen by a committee, which assessed each person's ability to take on such a mammoth challenge. The 15 were then told by Disney that they would have to whittle their group down to 11. The smaller group would be the crew of the Morning Light sailboat for the Transpac. The catch: Each member of the crew has little or no sailing experience, and none of them has ever sailed the open ocean for as long as it will take to complete the race.

Though the story's premise, however contrived, is solid enough, it's hard to connect with the young sailors for two reasons:

1. Almost all are children of upper-class, white-bread families who, we are led to assume, are attracted to the sport because it's part of their pedigree. The only exception to this is a black kid from Baltimore who doesn't make the final cut anyway.

2. The film is directed in such a way as to allow all the young adults equal screen time, but all that does is give us a too-shallow overview of each, making it difficult to connect deeply to any one of them. A better approach would have been to tell the story through the eyes of two or three of the most intriguing team members.

But for all of its flaws, "Morning Light" succeeds in appealing to our collective desire to see the underdog win — or at least cross the finish line. How could we not root for this motley crew of privileged kids who at times merely bobbed on the surface of the vast Pacific Ocean, willing the wind to pick up, and at other times sailed so expertly as to overtake their rival, the Samba Pa Ti, whose crew had been sailing longer than most of the "Morning Light" kids have been alive.

That's what good stories are made of, and in that, this flawed documentary finds its strength.

Of course, Hawai'i viewers have much more reason to watch the film than just to cheer on a crew of start-up sailors. Much of the footage is filmed in the Islands, and for us, it's like watching a really slick home movie.

We see the Honolulu airport, Nimitz Highway, Honolulu Harbor, and of course, our ocean, depicted here as dark, lonely and frightening and also tranquil, majestic and inviting. We know that it's all of those things, but it's nice to know that other people are seeing — and marveling, no doubt — at the place we call home.

Local boy Towill made the final cut to sail on the Morning Light, and though he doesn't get much screen time, he manages to throw a shaka or two at the camera. And even if he didn't get any screen time at all, just knowing he was on the boat is enough to make local audiences fill theaters.

And they should. At the very least, viewers will leave the theater having seen a film that makes them feel good.