Deepwater Horizon

Directed By: Peter BergWritten By: Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand (based on the article Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours by David Barstow, David Rohde and Stephanie Saul) Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, Kate Hudson, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez

There are two disasters which lay at the heart of the

Deepwater Horizon’s destruction in 2010. One is the ecological disaster. The rig’s blowout and resulting explosion signalled the largest oil spill in American history, a 210,000,000-gallon poisoning of the Gulf of Mexico which, by the time all was said and done, secured itself as the U.S’s most devastating environmental tragedy on record. The other disaster is the human cost; the needless loss of eleven lives which stemmed from nothing more than a cost-cutting, time-saving lack of due diligence on the part of the British Petroleum executives who overlooked the rig’s operation.

Peter Berg’s part docu-drama, part action film, part disaster movie (which shares its name with that of the doomed site) firmly straddles itself with the latter of those calamities. The ecological consequences of the event are relegated to footnotes in Deepwater Horizon’s postscript, a relegation which for some will be seen as reductive. But with a deliberate limiting of the scope, Berg, along with writers Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand, ensures the characters room to breathe; installing them with a realness and detail which is parlayed into both a permeating tension and terror.

In a lot of ways, it’s what Deepwater Horizon resists doing that makes it so effective. Given the explosion-bound inevitability of the subject matter, combined with Berg’s back catalogue boasting a film like Lone Survivor (a good movie but one whose human element is treated as cursory compared to its extended battle sequence and jingoism,) Deepwater Horizon surprisingly never stumbles into the pit-traps of the overblown disaster picture. The film resists being melodramatic or exploitive. It doesn’t rely on transparent, sympathy coaxing shortcuts or favour loud explosions as the true protagonist. It doesn’t reduce its braver characters, namely Mark Wahlberg as married father-of-one Mike Williams, to more action-hero than human. Even the film’s villain is leant some credence as a real life individual. John Malkovich plays a greasy, greedy, savage business executive with a thick Cajun accent, a villain who, on paper, appears to have accidentally wondered over from the set of the latest Bond film. Yet even he resists becoming a caricature. Vilified though he is, Berg and co. are sure to contextualise Malkovich’s actions, allowing for at least a trace of viability.

Admittedly, the characters do eventually settle into action movie archetypes. We have our hero in Wahlberg, we have our bad-guy in Malkovich. Kate Hudson plays Wahlberg’s panicky housewife, consigned to making fear-stricken phone calls, and Kurt Russell plays the fatherly moral compass of the crew, Mr. Jimmy. But fami

liar though these character roles undeniably are, there’s a truthfulness to them, an authenticity and personality.

It’s this authenticity which guides Deepwater’s action. Berg demonstrates an acute dramatic flair; a methodical, Hitchcockian patience and understanding of the notion that a disaster is only as devastating as those that it threatens are worth caring for. The first hour of the film is essentially groundwork; a situating of the viewer which consists of acquainting us with the rig’s mechanics and illustrating a striking sense of workplace culture between the crew members. The film spreads itself thin between the expansive team, but crucially, there’s no sense of expendability or facelessness plaguing the film’s subjects. The character interactions ring true, the detailing of the site’s operations are fastidious, and the film touts a veracity which thwarts any sense of “Hollywood” meddling.

If a first half consisting of groundwork sounds dull, it isn’t. Underneath the info-dumps and the getting-to-know-you games stirs a palpable dread. The inevitability of the disaster is in and of itself tense and knuckle whitening, effectively signposting the chaos to come. And boy does the chaos come. If the first hour is groundwork, the film’s final two acts are one gargantuan action sequence. The disaster and resulting set pieces pack all the viscerality and technical brilliance that Berg promised with his similarly prolonged action sequence in Lone Survivor. The destruction in this film is harrowing and physical. We’re placed on the doomed rig and immersed in the tragedy’s intensity. This calamity is scary to watch unfold, and so it should be.  As a disaster film, Deepwater Horizon isn’t “fun”, say in the vein of the 1970’s Irwin Allen pictures. Rather, Berg’s disaster movie fuses the spectacle of a Towering Inferno or Poseidon Adventure with the gritty, close-to-the-bone aesthetic of a Paul Greengrass bio-drama. If the ecology of the disaster is glossed over, (that may be better left to another film entirely,) the human realness and sheer terror of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon are captured in their imposing entirety, and that is the salient aim of Berg’s film.

Rating:

3.5/4