Deepwater Horizon (2016)

'Deepwater Horizon' (already sounds like an ominous novel!) is a disaster film about the BP oil rig off Louisiana, in the Gulf of Mexico, that blew up in 2010 and caused the largest oil spill in US history (800 million litres). Mike (Wahlberg) is the Chief Electronics Technician on the floating rig and they set-up his home life (Hudson is his wife and gets a few token scenes), as well as Andrea (Rodriguez), the helmsman. When they get to the rig, the Transocean rig workers - Jimmy (Russell) is the boss - are clearly distinguished from the BP visitors/owners, including Vidrine (Malkovich).The film is intentionally overt in painting BP as careless, profiteering "sons of bitches" and almost the sole cause of the disaster, which is probably not 100% accurate, but can't be too far off. Great line from Mike: "Hope is not a strategy". After 40min of setting the scene - with the set apparently one of the biggest ever built - the action begins and the pace doesn't slow at all after. There's some great underwater shots and the issues with pressure are explained well enough. The last hour is a hectic and tense amalgamation of explosions, gushing oil, people getting thrown around by explosions and Mike and Jimmy trying to evacuate everyone off the rig.This is Berg and Wahlberg's second film - after the great 'Lone Survivor' - and it's a well-made disaster film, with no dead air, not too much posturing, a likeable lead in Wahlberg, builds tension well and then has some awesome shots of the rig burning and exploding. Nice memorial at the end.

A movie that focuses on a single binary event- the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The film avoids delving into the political, social, or ecological ramifications of the disaster and its aftermath. This is a major disappointment for me. The directors could have made so much more of this movie. The film stars Mark Walhberg as a technician who works on the Deepwater Horizon. Wahlberg's character has no special skills that are apparent or ever explained. He has no interesting dialogue. He sits around surfing the web and chatting with his wife half of the movie. When things go south, he suddenly morphs into a super hero with super human skills who saves lives. But I digress. Wahlberg's role in Deepwater Horizon is virtually identical to "The Perfect Storm". He has a Suzy-homemaker wife played by Kate Hudson who sits at home watching soap operas all day worrying about him while Wahlberg is out at sea trying to earn a paycheck for his family. It was like they carbon-copied his character from "The Perfect Storm", but changed the scenery to an oil rig. Other stars include Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, and Gina Rodriguez. Russell is the good-guy rig supervisor who the workers love. He is at odds with Malkovich, a BP executive, who only cares about corporate profits at the expense of safety and the environment. The most passionate scene of the movie involves a heated exchange between Russell and Malkovich, but this exchange is done awkwardly. It is not classic Kurt Russell. Both Russell and Malkovich have bizarre accents that are difficult to understand. Russell tries to speak with a Southern accent and Malkovich uses a New Orleans Creole accept. Both work poorly. It is nearly impossible to understand what they are saying, but you get the gist of their dispute. Gina Rodriguez's character is also a tech of some sort. There's really not much else to say on her. She is boring like Wahlberg. The other characters in the movie are background props. They are cannon-fodder. The characters do all sorts of tests that are never explained to the audience. You have no idea what is going on and it is never explained what caused the failure. The action scenes as the disaster begins are well done. Lots of blood, shrapnel, etc. There is a scene that looks like it was stolen right out of the movie "Titanic" where a worker is blown off the side of the rig into the sea and hits a propeller of some sort before bouncing off to his death. Overall, the movie is an easy paycheck for Wahlberg and Russell. They are asked to do very little as the film focuses more on explosions. With a letter effort, the writers could have added some scenes in the beginning and the end about the politics and environmental consequences.

In this age, it is not easy to create films about catastrophes, without sliding into expensive but uninteresting CGI effects, or getting cheap and nasty. Deepwater Horizon is a very fine example of exquisite balance between excellent actors' performances (Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Mark Walberg and Kate Hudson all show definite depth and sophisticated valor, depicting their parts decently and with a great gusto) and awesome CGI effects. Without going deeper into technical details, I have to admit the film has achieved its main goal - to show true heroism, valor, valiance and also cowardice and shallowness in the wake of doom and death. Excellent depiction of Lousiana nature, exactly right balance of mundane, tragic, heroic and stupid all add certain flavor to the very tough and nutritious broth of a film. I do recommend this fast, deeply tragic, decent and sobering film to all who want to think and would like to watch something serious and thought-provoking.

It's the second movie I see in a row where Mark Wahlberg is presented as the heroic average guy. Do all Americans see themselves as former underwear models? The movie was OK. First show how good and professional and real people are the heroes of the story, demonize the middle management who wants to get things done hoping it will all be OK and risking everybody's lives, express the idea that money hungry sons of bitches are to blame, then blow everything up.The film presents only the actual event, with lots of fire, explosions, blow outs and debris flying everywhere. The lower on the corporate ladder people are the more heroic they appear. That's dramatization for you. I would have loved to have a small part in the end dedicated to the BP cover up and the legal mess afterwards, but they kept quiet. I don't even know if it was all cleared up by 2010. However, you should look up Peter Berg's article about BP's interference with the movie. Just look for "The 'well from hell' – my fight with BP to film Deepwater Horizon" and you'll find it.Bottom line: classic disaster movie, with a straight story of the event, rather than the entire political and legislative chaos that ensued.