Early on in this often thrilling study of a famous ecological catastrophe, young Sydney (Stella Allen) rehearses an upcoming school presentation on her daddy’s job. He is electronics technician Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) and he works on the doomed oil exploration platform Deepwater Horizon.
Sydney does a good job. She explains that the platform is not bolted to the floor, but moves freely like any other maritime vessel. It does not pump oil; it merely tests whether a deposit is viable. To finish, she constructs a model of the coming catastrophe with drink cans, straws and whatnot.
A cynic might balk at the shamelessness of the exposition, but the scene exemplifies what Deepwater Horizon does best. Over its opening hour, while pressure builds beneath the seafloor, the picture talks us lucidly through the dynamics of a complex operation.
Played with familiar vulnerability by Wahlberg, Williams tours the structure, pointing out its many inadequacies while reinforcing the notion that this is a story of good men undone by cynical corporate hoods.
We've been here before in fiction. Ibsen's An Enemy of the People had an early crack. Jaws and The Towering Inferno (an obvious predecessor) also took a swipe at the same structure. There is the odd coward among the working crew. Not everybody makes the correct decision. But most honour the example offered by brave, efficient, bluff crew captain Mr Jimmy (Kurt Russell). All Hawksian workplaces need such a fellow: a bit frightening, but endlessly competent.
These honest men are let down by the sort of penny-pinching bastards you fully expect to see played by John Malkovich. So it proves. Malkovich makes a slippery, cowardly Southern slave owner of BP rep Donald Vidrine (a real person, later given 10 months probation on pollution charges). The interactions are very satisfactory.
Sadly, the film does fall apart when disaster strikes. Having managed to explain the science, director Peter Berg can’t quite make sense of the escalating explosive chaos. The survivors deserve something a little less bombastic of the final act.
Stirring event cinema
