Deepwater Horizon (2016) [Blu-ray]
Action | Drama | Thriller

Tagline: Inspired by a true story of real life heroes

Mark Wahlberg leads an all-star cast in this unforgettably powerful film inspired by a thrilling story of real-life heroes. For the one hundred and twenty-six people aboard the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig, April 20, 2010, began like any normal day. Before day's end, the world would bear witness to one of the greatest man-made disasters in U.S. history. Deepwater Horizon reveals the brave acts of the men and women who rose to the challenge - and risked everything to lead others to safety.

Storyline: In April 2010, there is no oil exploration operation in the Gulf of Mexico to compare with the Deepwater Horizon oil rig with its size or sheer depth of its drilling. However, the project for the BP oil company is beset with technical difficulties to the point where the general operational supervisor, Jimmy Harrell, and his Chief Electrical Engineer, Mike Williams, are concerned potentially dangerous trouble is brewing. Unfortunately, visiting BP executives, frustrated by the project's long delays, order curtailed site inspections and slanted system tests to make up for lost time even as Harrell, Williams and his team helplessly protest for the sake of proper safety. On April 20, the workers' fears are realized in the worst possible way when the rig's various structural and system flaws spark a catastrophic cascade of failures that would create a massive blowout and explosion that threatens them all, even as it also begins the worst environmental disaster in US history. Written by Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, January 4, 2017 Disaster films often are focused on what are kind of euphemistically called "acts of god" by insurance firms. The titular ocean liner of The Poseidon Adventure fame didn't turn itself over, after all, nor did Los Angeles create its own Earthquake (as much as some might aver karma had something to do with it). Armageddon seemed imminent without any causal connection to Mankind, and neither Volcano nor Dante's Peak erupted due to some human's malfeasance. There have been notable exceptions, however, including the film that is often credited with creating (or at least reinvigorating) the disaster genre way back in 1970, Airport, where the literally explosive climax was in fact due to a hapless man (one ironically intent on securing an insurance payment for his family). The Towering Inferno is probably one of the best examples of a disaster being caused by humans, what with corrupt contractors cutting corners and leading to a rather flammable situation. Something very similar is on hand in Deepwater Horizon, a film which purports to document the horrifying chain of events which resulted in several deaths in 2010 and which reportedly also caused the single biggest oil spill in United States waters (a "record" which hopefully won't be "bested" any time soon, if ever). Deepwater Horizon is undeniably exciting, but it's also a weird mashup of disaster film and what might be termed a "popcorn flick", something that might be more acceptable if the story weren't based on real life. It seems a little churlish (and frankly maybe a lot churlish) to be deriving a dose of adrenaline off of the sad series of man made mistakes that resulted in such carnage.

Deepwater Horizon wants to take the docudrama approach, at least as evidenced by various subtitles that seek to identify some of the locations and/or technologies on display, but at the same time the film wants to provide human drama that is at least partly (and probably inevitably) fictionalized, providing "private" moments for a number of characters that may or may not have actually happened. It's a dicey dialectic, but one that scenarists Matthew Michael Carnahan and Michael Sand, along with director Peter Berg, manage to keep balanced most of the time.

Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) and Jimmy Harrell (Kurt Russell) arrive at the Deepwater Horizon after some introductory vignettes which seek to quickly establish the two as stand up guys, and it becomes obvious that these two in particular are meant to serve as audience surrogates, especially once they become aware of how shoddy some of the preparatory work on the offshore drilling rig has been. One of the kind of interesting things about the film is that it does not fictionalize names of various companies involved in the disaster, chief among them BP, with BP employee Donald Vidrine (John Malkovich) posited as the obvious villain of the piece.

There's quite a bit of expository material, some character based, a lot of it detailing the technical aspects of what led to the disaster, before all hell breaks loose a rather surprisingly long way into what is not really that lengthy of a film. At that point, Deepwater Horizon tends to tip more into traditional disaster film mode, with one devastating explosion after another taking out various characters as heroic efforts to stem the tide (so to speak) ultimately end up failing. Director Peter Berg (who collaborated with Wahlberg previously on Lone Survivor) keeps things moving at a breakneck pace once the carnage does start, but a certain amount of patience needs to be afforded the film in the early going. That said, the subliminal dread that builds during the early scenes is often palpable and probably only adds to the ultimate "payoff" once the disaster begins unfolding.

In a way, Deepwater Horizon is certainly no more "exploitative" than other disaster films based on true life incidents (Flight 93 springs instantly to mind in this regard), though some may feel a bit uneasy deriving "entertainment" from such harrowing circumstances. That said, the film is resolutely respectful of the "good guys" in this scenario, even if it resorts to near cartoonish depictions of the "bad guys", chief among them Vidrine.

Deepwater Horizon, the film, is undeniably exciting but a little trite in its supposed character development. Deepwater Horizon, the Blu- ray release, offers great looking video and astounding audio and (if one bites the bullet for some kind of VR gear) has the latest "gizmo" the brain trust at various home theater labels are trying to market, 360 degree virtual reality supplements. Recommended.


[CSW] -1.8- The acting was great, the special effects spectacular, and the characters were developed enough so you knew why everyone did what they did. Even the banter and dialog was good, so why was this at best a so-so movie? The cinematography was jumpy with the rapid panning and way too much shaky-cam which was supposed to add realism and tension but just made things hard to visually follow. But what I found most disappointing was an absolutely clear understanding of exactly what went wrong and how it went wrong. Unless you worked on a deep-water oil rig it is not at all clear where the bubbles were coming from, why there was no mud, what the bypass did and how it operated, why there was pressure on the main drill but not on the bypass. I really wanted to know the exact details of how they could be mislead by the readings. Maybe the engineer in me was expecting too much but I could only guess that the bubbles were coming through the bad concrete but I had no clue on what happened in the bypass line. I just needed a more detailed explanation. If you leave your brain at the door and don't need an explanation other than possibly faulty concrete and corporate greed caused the problem you will enjoy that much more than I did.
[V4.5-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box motion codes were available at the time of this rental although they are available now.


º º