A towering inferno at sea
WITH all the explosions, gushing oil, fireballs, billowing smoke, crashing metal, airborne choppers, screaming and pandemonium breaking out in all directions, you can barely understand a fraction of the dialogue in Deepwater Horizon. But that doesn’t matter a bit. All that counts is that the film serves up a realistic, action-packed rendition of the worst oil spill in US history.
Director Berg and Wahlberg deliver the goods with a drama about an incident that created an environmental disaster and a worldwide scandal. Berg has made a film that feels a good deal shorter than it is; it really does fly by. After an opening in which Wahlberg’s character’s wife (Hudson) wants some morning action before her husband heads to work on the rig for three weeks, little time is spent on personal issues.
No, it’s all about what happened in April 2010 on British Petroleum’s enormous Deepwater Horizon oil platform off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico. The villain is apparent right away, he being BP executive, Donald Vidrine (Malkovich), a drawling bottom-line type who insists on going ahead with some tests despite doubts about their viability.
More dubious are the workers, led by crew chief Jimmy Harrell (Russell) and chief electronics technician, Mike Williams (Wahlberg), who put safety first. As usual, it’s the evil profit-minded bosses versus the little guys, which was exactly the case, and BP will never hear the end of it.
The pandemonium starts quickly, with dials spinning into the red zone, oil seeping up through the floor, bolts popping, water surging in and fire and smoke spreading to the rig’s chambers. And here, dialogue stops mattering as the action takes over.
The structure quickly becomes a towering inferno and there’s no way to put out this fire. Berg and company dedicate themselves to illustrating the panic, confusion, peril, general good judgement and heroism that resulted in just 11 people losing their lives.
Illustrating this is what the rest of the film is about. As the platform becomes increasingly engulfed in flames, rescue efforts by boat and helicopter are undertaken to the extent possible, although it remains a wonder that most people survived, given the hell on water evident in nearly every frame.
The action just goes and goes, climaxing at the point when the last two people left on the rig seem to be Williams and rig worker Andrea Fleytas (Rodriguez). They’ll both be consumed by flames if they don’t jump into the water, but that’s very far down and she can’t face it. In a very effective moment, he makes the decision for her.
For the public, the Deepwater Horizon incident represented perhaps the greatest greed- and- big business-caused environmental catastrophe ever and, while the result is evident, the focus remains on the individuals who had to deal with the disaster and try to survive it. The film tells a clear story concerned specifically with the frontline grunts who take the brunt of the punishment in a conflict or crisis. – The Hollywood Reporter If you liked Armageddon or W, you’ll like this.