Deepwater Horizon (2016)

Directed by: Peter Berg | 107 minutes | action, drama | Actors: Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, Kate Hudson, John Malkovich, Douglas M. Griffin, James DuMont, Joe Chrest, Gina Rodriguez, Brad Leland, David Maldonado, JD Evermore, Ethan Suplee, Jason Pine, Jason Kirkpatrick, Robert Walker Branchaud, Dylan O’Brien, Jonathan Angel, Stella Allen, Peter Berg

On April 20, 2010, an explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Millions of liters of oil polluted the sea and eleven people died. It took nearly three months to plug the leak and all the while the oil kept flowing, resulting in the largest oil spill in American history. The film ‘Deepwater Horizon’ mainly focuses on the run-up to the disaster, the disaster itself and a little bit of the aftermath for the employees involved.

Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) is about to leave for the oil platform for three weeks. He spends some time at the breakfast table with his wife Felicia (Kate Hudson) and daughter Sydney (Stella Allen). He listens in amusement as Sydney briefly presents her talk (about her father’s work, how handy for the viewer!). Using a shaken Coke can, she explains how dangerous her father’s job—which she calls dinosaur taming—is.

Once on the oil platform, Mike and his colleagues, including his boss Mr. Jimmy (Kurt Russell), who wants to follow strict rules for security, soon clash with the men at BP, who lease Deepwater Horizon. One of those men is Donald Vidrine, a role that John Malkovich can play with his eyes closed. Above all, BP wants to complete the projects quickly, so that as little money and time as possible is lost and therefore certain rules are not adhered to too strictly. To make up for the time that has already been lost, the green light to drill is given, while around Mike several devices have failed or have already failed.

There won’t be a viewer who has made it this far in ‘Deepwater Horizon’ and can’t get a feel for how the story continues. It’s almost cartoonish, as predictable as the movie is. When things go wrong, Mike is the one to rescue his colleagues, and on the home front, Felicia is the beacon to which the remaining women cling to updates on the disaster.

Yet Peter Berg’s film is not a heroic epic, but a realistic and skillfully made disaster film, with just enough deepened characters, enough tension and with respect for the victims. The director manages to keep the balance between information and entertainment, so that afterwards the audience actually understands why things went wrong on this oil platform. That the gentlemen of BP – especially Donald Vidrine – are portrayed as one-dimensional money wolves may not be entirely fair, but apparently this film does not need a nuanced approach.