Deepwater Horizon (2016)
Director: Peter Berg (15)
Rating: 4/5
Synopsis
On 20 April 2010, an explosion aboard the ultra-deep oil drilling rig Deepwater Horizon ignited an uncontrollable fire that killed 11 crewman. This film chronicles the events that led to this and the efforts by those in charge (Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell) to save the remaining crew and stop the disaster.
Review by Jason Day
Director and former actor Berg's second mega-budget action movie set on the high seas (after 2012's drippy Battleship) is a tightly, solidly crafted drama chronicling the explosion aboard the titular oil rig and the resulting rescue of more than 100 crew members.
Wisely, he stays a few footsteps away from the convoluted political and legal arguments that continue to this day, following the environmental disaster that befell the southern US seaboard. It's a conversation best reserved for the documentary format rather than blockbuster, pyrotechnically fantastic disaster drama.
This entry in the 'cataclysm cinema' genre can proudly take its place beside its classical forbears Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno because Berg and his writers know the best of them (of which those movies undoubtedly are) focus more on the survival element, keeping the soap-operatics of the personal backstories to the minimum.
It also helps that they almost completely avoid the Brit-bashing, erroneous finger-pointing of American TV news coverage during the time of the disaster in 2010; an unexpected refreshing and fair-minded approach.
For more, read the full review: http://bit.ly/DeepwaterFilm
Cast & credits
Director: Peter Berg. 108mins. Lionsgate. (12a).
Producers: Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Mark Vahradian, David Womark.
Writers: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Matthew Sand.
Camera: Enrique Chediak.
Music: Steve Jablonsky.
Sets: Chris Seagers.
Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez, Dylan O’Brien, Kate Hudson, Douglas M. Griffin, Peter Berg.
