Deepwater Horizon [2016]

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Dylan O’Brien & Gina Rodriguez
Directed by: Peter Berg

Distributed by: Lionsgate
Release Date: September 2016
Running Time: 107 mins

Synopsis: On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, igniting a massive fireball that kills several crew members. Chief electronics technician Mike Williams and his colleagues find themselves fighting for survival as the heat and the flames become stifling and overwhelming. Banding together, the co-workers must use their wits to make it out alive amid all the chaos.

Deepwater Horizon is a biographical disaster movie based upon the real events that led up to the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20th 2010 and the subsequent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Adapted from the article “Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours” which was published in The New York Times, the film provides a slightly dramatized account of the explosion aboard the oil drilling rig and the various decisions and environment issues that contributed to the incident. With its roots to a real-life event, the film gains a degree of gravitas and realism above other disaster movies, but it also has less room for imagination and fancy – the film itself is pretty accurate in terms of the events that occurred, with some minor dramatic licenses taken. If it was a completely fictitious account, I suspect the greedy BP execs would have met with some karmic death or comeuppance, but as it was real life, the postscript reveals that they got away with it completely!

Mark Wahlberg stars as Mike Williams, channelling his everyman appeal as an actor into portraying this real-life electrical technician working on the rig. Wahlberg excels in “astonishment mode” – a talent he famously put to use in the abysmal ‘horror’ The Happening, and he brings that same level of confusion to this role once things begin to unravel aboard the Horizon. Kurt Russell also exudes likeability as “Mr Jimmy”, the affable Installation Manager who is liked and respected by his men, but is in constant battle with the BP executives to hit targets. The film clearly designates “good guy” and “bad guy” roles for each person, with John Malkovich chewing up the scenery as the Southern-accented BP Manager Don Vidrine, who ultimately causes the catastrophe by pressurizing the workers to ignore inconsistent test results and move on. While there is no denying that corporate greed and pressure were the catalysts behind this incident, the film purposefully avoids humanizing the BP execs in favour of casting them as unwelcome outsiders; almost like gods amongst mortals, playing with their fates.

The film follows Mike Williams’ perspective for the majority of the movie, using the electrical technician to explain the rig and its operation to the audience. Some of the exposition is a bit too laboured – such as the sequence where Williams’ daughter explains to him (but really us) how the Deepwater Horizon works. Sure, a lot of this information is needed as it isn’t widely known and is critical to understanding how the disaster occurred, but it seemed to be delivered in a ham-fisted fashion. I did like the sequences that showcased Williams’ everyday routine and how he greeted everyone on his return to the rig, almost providing the viewers with a guided tour of the rig and the key players. Seeing these mundane interactions and discussions between co-workers heightens the tension, since the viewers are counting down the minutes until the expected disaster, and the film did a great job at depicting the camaraderie of the oil rig workers – making the losses in the second half of the film feel more meaningful.

Kate Hudson appears as Williams’ wife, Felicia, and has very little to do besides looking worried or acting horny – in fact, the focus on her horniness seemed so prominent that I’m surprised the real Felicia Williams was happy with her portrayal in the film. There were a number of familiar supporting actors such as Ethan Suplee and Dylan O’Brien who helped to showcase some of the manual-workers on the rig – particularly those who lost their lives. The film also focuses on Andrea Fleytas, played by Gina Rodriguez, but she doesn’t get an opportunity to stand out – if I recall, her main identifying feature was that her car had broken down and her superior was a bit of a dickhead. She offers some female representation for the film, aside from Hudson, but doesn’t really have any major impact on events aside from the dramatic finale, which sees her and Williams leap from the highest point of the rig to safety.

The film’s special effects were extremely impressive, and I was surprised to learn that the set consisted of an 85% scale replica of the actual Deepwater Horizon rig, built in the car park of an abandoned Six Flags theme park. That certainly adds to the scale of the spectacle. As much as the human interest element drives anticipation for the inevitable disaster, it is the actual visualization of the explosions and mayhem that draws viewers towards these types of films and the director Peter Berg succeeds in capturing the intensity of the event. For the most part, the film focuses on the events of that specific day, but there are some brief references to the aftermath at the end, with audio clips from the trial and post-script text detailing the impact the oil spill had on the environment. I would have liked to have seen more about the trial and the long-term aftermath, especially since the film had done a great job at making the audience care about the survivors – it feels somewhat underwhelming to cut that part of the journey out of the film.

Deepwater Horizon struggles to determine whether it is an accurate record of the events that led up to the destruction of the titular oil rig, or whether it is a big-budget disaster movie. The film wears its morality on its sleeve, making use of archetypes to make us root for the workers and hate the corporate middle-men (not that it takes much effort to do that) but it also forsakes the drama of the subsequent court case and post-disaster PR problems BP suffered. Both Wahlberg and Russell are affable leads – effortlessly depicting their real-world counterparts as likeable and honest workers, whilst Malkovich almost descends into parody with his portrayal of bean-counting BP exec, Don Vidrine. Overall, this is a standard disaster movie with the usual expensive-looking CGI explosions we’ve come to expect over the past decade, but it is the character moments from its cast that elevate the film above average. Deepwater Horizon has to tread the difficult tightrope between the exploitation of a real-world tragedy and historical representation, and largely it manages to achieve the right balance between entertainment and information, thanks to its solid lead performances and realism.