Homage to those who perish at sea
Compelling performances and a strong moral compass are at the helm of Deepwater Horizon
Deepwater Horizon is a harrowing, thrilling and ultimately tragic retelling of the real-life ecological catastrophe from six years ago in the Gulf of Mexico.
Director Peter Berg — whose film is based on a New York Times investigative article that skewers the British-American oil company BP — does an excellent job of putting audiences on-board the giant floating oil rig when it failed and exploded into flames on April 20, 2010. What followed was the worst marine oil spill in history.
This is a Hollywood disaster movie that actually has a conscience and strong moral integrity. So you feel it emotionally when you see what happened, why it happened, and how 11 men lost their lives because of corporate greed, arrogant stupidity and gross negligence.
Both the action scenes and the charged dramatic sequences are skilfully balanced, in part because Berg is so even-handed. But also in part because of the strong performances from co-stars Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, Gina Rodriguez, John Malkovich and Kate Hudson.
They all play real-life characters. Wahlberg, as senior electronics technician Mike Williams, becomes the Everyman hero when all hell breaks loose on the rig. He clinches the deal after the ordeal ends by retreating from the others and breaking down in tears. The adrenalin rush is over. This is reality. Real heroes are vulnerable and fragile, just like other human beings. Wahlberg conveys that superbly.
Russell plays the gruff Transocean crew chief James (Mr. Jimmy), Harrell — and makes him more dynamic than Harrell seemed when he testified at the investigative hearings later. Hudson (Russell’s adopted daughter), plays Wahlberg’s wife and appears with Russell in a movie for the first time. Rodriguez is a crew member who specializes in positioning the rig. Malkovich portrays BP executive Donald Vidrine as a smarmy manipulator.
In life, the Deepwater Horizon was a floating exploratory oil rig that was leased from Transocean by a consortium headed by BP. In the movie, Berg works with screenwriters Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand to lead us through the events immediately before the rig failed and then blew up. Starting with a cutesy home scene with Wahlberg and Hudson, then more seriously on the rig, we get an interesting educational tutorial on how things operate — with one notable exception.
That exception is one of the confusing things about the plot of Deepwater Horizon. Berg does not fully establish the physical geography of the rig so, even after the rig starts to LOUDLY break apart, Russell’s character, Mr. Jimmy, is initially oblivious to it while taking a shower.
That is an actual fact from real life, but it is difficult to believe in the movie. So is the climax of the rescue, when Wahlberg’s Williams and Rodriguez’s Andrea Fleytas are the last ones alive on the Horizon.
That said, almost all of rest of the movie is utterly believable. That is one of the reasons the action hits home so forcefully. And, despite controversy, it is one of the reasons that Deepwater Horizon does not exploit the deaths of 11 just for the sake of entertainment. Instead, Berg’s movie is a homage to those who perished, and a tribute to the rugged men and women who survived the ordeal as well as to those who risked their lives in the rescue.