Deepwater Horizon

Dir: Peter Berg

2016

***

Director Peter Berg has had an interesting career. 1998's Very Bad Things was a refreshing film when it came out and it was an unexpected thrill when I saw it in the cinema. Friday Night Lights proved he could do drama successfully and even had me interested in a sport I have no interest in. The Kingdom, Hancock and Battleship would suggest that he was hired more for the way he directs action over everything else. He proved this wasn't the case with Lone Survivor which was a great drama, however, while it wisely avoided probing bigger issues, it took liberties with respects to the facts and didn't always feel as authentic as it could have been. Deepwater Horizon is much the same, the set-up is a little contrived in place, the actors are positively glamorous compared to the people they depict and there is something abundantly gratuitous about how the story plays out. It is important to remember that this film is based on the true events of the Deepwater Oil disaster of 2010, 11 people died, the survivors are still alive and the turn of events are very well documented, so it has to be both factual and respectful of those who lost their lives, suffered and are trying to overcome the trauma the experience inflicted on them. However, I congratulate the film on pointing the finger of blame at BP and its representatives at the time. Safety checks were not performed to save money, after a lengthy court case several representatives were sued with manslaughter and after a high-court ruling (and after BP sued the owner of the rig and manufacturers of the equipment used on the rig) U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier described BP's actions as "reckless," while he said Transocean's (owner and operator of the rig) and Halliburton's (who laid the cement on the ocean floor) actions were "negligent." He apportioned 67% of the blame for the spill to BP, 30% to Transocean, and 3% to Halliburton. It has cost BP approx $54 Billion, which is about half of their annual profits. A lot of money but the loss of life and environmental damage they have caused is devastating and it falls short of adequate punishment, so it is important that we have film to highlight these important issues. So, in this respect, Deepwater Horizon should really have been a documentary, rather than an action film. Indeed, many of the survivors were so upset by Berg's largely fictional turn of events, they have set about crowd funding a documentary that will reveal the truth of what happened that day. The film's set up was okay, I didn't care much for the scenes involving Mike Williams's (played by Mark Wahlberg) family or Gina Rodriguez's representation of Andrea Fleytas but once the story moved to the rig it showed it to be a technical place, with people doing their jobs in a rather mundane environment, with a bit of internal politics you'd expect from a joint venture involving different companies. The exploration of authority was rather clever and everything looked as you'd imagine. The explosion would have been huge and this is shown as I dare say it would have looked if you were there but it was at times far too graphic and somewhat disrespectful. The final scene that takes place on the rig almost ruined the whole thing for me, it turned into a schmaltzy action cliché and left quite a bitter taste in my mouth. I'm remembering the positives when I give the film three stars, most of the film follows the facts, it just goes horribly towards the end. Cut the first ten minutes and the last ten minutes of the film out and it's a vastly improved piece, as it is now though is questionable.