Director Peter Berg brings us the tale of the 2010 events upon the Deepwater Horizon, a semi submersible offshore drilling unit, which resulted in the worst environmental disaster in the United States and during which eleven people lost their life.

Essentially told in two parts we start by meeting the main players, finding out a bit about said people and their lives outside of work. Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) is a general handyman and fixer on the rig, whom we see with his wife Felicia (Kate Hudson) and daughter and he comes across an everyday down to earth family man, Andrea Fleytas (Gina Rodriguez) who drives the rig and shows some chops by giving as good as she gets in the male dominated scenario and the experienced manager of the rig Jimmy Harrell (Kurt Russell) who runs the ship but is liked and respected by his crew. There are also a number of BP employees on board who are worried that the project is falling behind schedule and money is being lost, central to this is Donald Vidrine (John Malkovich) who is at loggerheads with Harrell over the slow progress but all in all the picture is painted of just another regular day and unremarkable shift change.

The second part switches to the drilling unit and is all about the occurrence and aftermath of the incident. We find out that there are a number of parts and items which are not working correctly and that the pressure is on all parties as the project is running at a big loss so the BP personnel are keen to push on with the drilling and are taking short cuts around testing regimes while Harrell and his team are unsure that the drilling can continue safely and are reluctant to continue until the proper tests are run. The build up is very well done slowly peeling back the chain of events which, when coupled together lead to a drill test falsely showing results which would indicate that it is safe to proceed but unknown to the people aboard the chain reaction which leads to the blow out has already kicked in, the fuse on the ticking time bomb is lit and a disaster is imminent.

The Berg & Wahlberg partnership, which we seen in Lone Survivor, once again works well and Berg gets the best out of Wahlberg who once again shows us that there is more to his acting than his comedic timing and that, when he is on form he can take centre stage. It is great to have Russell back close to his best and what he does here he does with ease yet the performance still has the gravitas it requires. When you add in Malkovich who gives a great sleazy performance as the BP executive who is all about the monetary return for the company there is a good acting base to work off and the verbal exchange scenes between Malkovich and Russell are excellent.

Unfortunately despite all the early work I still felt very little empathy with the characters. Yes, there were heroes, signs of great camaraderie between these workers who spend weeks together in the middle of the ocean, tales of self-sacrifice and lives being put in danger to help others but rather than feeling like real people I still felt that I was watching actors in a movie and despite the terrible situation that was occurring I never got to really caring about the fate of the characters in a way that a disaster movie really should suck you into doing.

On the up side, while the movie could have become bogged down with technical details I always felt that I understood what was going on with the machinery and why the disaster occurred, so credit must be given for the moments of exposition which gave us an inside to how the drilling worked, particularly the use of Walhbergs daughters school assignment utilising a fizzy drink to show the pressure that drilling occurs under and once it kicks off it is one of the most spectacular disaster sequences I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure how much of the filming was done through CGI but the explosions and fires felt very real and there were very few occasions where I was taken out of the moment. Each creak could be the one which finally brings the structure tumbling into the sea which adds a great tension to the situation. Both the sound editing and technical camera was excellent with some very good underwater scenes around the structure base and the inside of the mechanical parts of the drill giving some insight into the unseen workings of the set up.

The last few moments film back on shore, dealing with the aftermath of the situation also falls a little flat after the intensity of the rigs demise so while not the greatest film you will see this year it’s worth checking out for the great portrayal of the disaster itself, think Backdraft meets The Towering Inferno for the modern age.

DJ Speaks Rating: 5.5 Out Of 10

© Darren Jones 2016