Deepwater Horizon
Directed by: Peter Berg
Written by: Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez, Dylan O'Brien, Kate Hudson, Brad Leland, Ethan Suplee
Action/Drama/Thriller - 107 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 26 Sep 2016
Written by: Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez, Dylan O'Brien, Kate Hudson, Brad Leland, Ethan Suplee
Action/Drama/Thriller - 107 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 26 Sep 2016
Disaster movies tend to focus on the calamity in question and the heroic deeds of the brave to get to survive it or even fight against it. Sometimes the audience is told who to blame like the geese in Sully, the ship’s captain in Titanic, or George Clooney’s foolhardy decision to keep going in The Perfect Storm. Deepwater Horizon is far less subtle. The filmmakers say 11 people died on April 20, 2010 because of Donald Vidrine and Robert Kaluza. Penny pinchers preferred the bottom line over rudimentary industry standards, even aboard one of the world’s largest technological marvels drilling holes in volatile earth farther than man has ever dug before. Director Peter Berg wants you to know the manmade Deepwater Horizon disaster was most likely preventable, but not as much as BP was tired of losing half a million dollars a day on something as silly as safety.
Most of us remember the environmental impact and the 24/7 camera stationed right next to the oil spewing directly into the Gulf of Mexico. 50,000 barrels a day gushed into the water killing wildlife and throttling businesses dependent on an unpolluted sea. Overshadowed during the cleanup but exposed further in the investigations and court cases to follow were the 11 souls of the 126 crew members who did not make it home. Co-writers Matthew Carnahan and Matthew Sand tell their stories, some who deliberately sacrificed themselves to save their fellow man.
Most of us remember the environmental impact and the 24/7 camera stationed right next to the oil spewing directly into the Gulf of Mexico. 50,000 barrels a day gushed into the water killing wildlife and throttling businesses dependent on an unpolluted sea. Overshadowed during the cleanup but exposed further in the investigations and court cases to follow were the 11 souls of the 126 crew members who did not make it home. Co-writers Matthew Carnahan and Matthew Sand tell their stories, some who deliberately sacrificed themselves to save their fellow man.
Kicking off with a monumentally unsubtle explanation of how modern offshore platforms tap into sections of the earth off limits to humans, Deepwater Horizon’s chief electrician Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg, Ted 2) uses a coke can and honey to simulate how it’s done. It will come as no surprise to anyone the ensuing explosion occurs eerily similar to Williams’s rudimentary demonstration. The disaster was only six years ago and the movie poster displays a massive explosion on it, but perhaps a show and tell session at the breakfast table is a tad too obvious a setup where what looks like the ultimate loving family man may or may not come home.
Flying toward the rig and helipad Jurassic Park style, trouble is afoot immediately when Mike and his boss, Mr. Jimmy (Kurt Russell, The Hateful Eight), touch down. The crew in charge of conducting mandatory safety checks hops on board and heads back to the mainland without conducting said checks. Mr. Jimmy is respected by all, revered for his drilling knowledge, and has a knack of speaking in metaphor to capture attention. However, given that he works for Transocean, the company building the platform, and BP is the company footing the bill, the financiers get the final say when the hairs on Mr. Jimmy’s neck stand up in the face of so many actions disregarding proper construction and maintenance.
John Malkovich (Zoolander 2), channeling Jimmy Carville as Donald Vidrine, cannot fathom why all these blue collar workers are so nonchalant with leaking all of this overhead in Deepwater Horizon’s habitual construction problems; it’s not their money he surmises. The calamitous facts that Deepwater Horizon was six weeks behind schedule and over budget impacts Vidrine the same way NASA reacted in Armageddon when they learned an asteroid was on a collision course with the planet. Carnahan and Sand exceed their metaphor quotient as Mr. Jimmy uses the concept of flossing in the morning to prevent future dental problems and Mike Williams talks solemnly about catching catfish barehanded through the ‘noodlin’ method describing how you know the bite is coming and you’re ready for it, unlike the bite he is sure is coming from the sea floor. Russell and Wahlberg deliver these monologues earnestly and believably, but they come across as blunt and heavy-handed as the breakfast table science project earlier on.
Peter Berg opts once again to dive way into the story and tell it from a personal angle. In Lone Survivor, the action was from Wahlberg’s point of view and in Deepwater Horizon, Berg chose Mike Williams as his way in and put Wahlberg front and center to take us through it. Williams, who can rattle off the 3000 different problems with the oil platform spends an inordinate amount of time in his small office skyping with his wife, Felicia (Kate Hudson, Wish I Was Here), instead of actually fixing any of these things. Felicia is in the same position as Laura Linney in Sully, stuck emoting in front of the TV or with a phone stuck to her head pacing the room. It’s a lonely job for these wives cemented at home while their husbands are trying to survive catastrophe.
Number crunchers proclaim the rig the production designers built to shoot on is one of the largest sets ever built in the history of film. 85% to scale of the real Deepwater Horizon, it even fooled some real consultants and riggers who thought the studio brought in a decommissioned rig. The set gives off a Titanic vibe as those who keep rhapsodizing about this technological achievement turn a blind eye to its vulnerabilities; full speed ahead as it were. Director of Photography Enrique Chediak (The Maze Runner) gets to whirl a full 360 degrees around the set, shoot high, and shoot low because of the effort for authenticity. The blowout and persistent fireball explosions are practical effects with limited CGI interference and it shows. That fire looks real on screen. It helps connect with the dire straits and calamity falling on top of the crew. We sympathize with the guys who wanted to do it right against the guys who wanted to make money. Perhaps with a bit more subtlety and finesse, Deepwater Horizon would rise above standard disaster fare instead of falling right in line as a conventional disaster film; in a metaphor which would fit right in the script, there is far more depth to the oil platform than to this story.
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