Deepwater Horizon Review

PG13: Prolonged Intense Disaster Sequences and Related Disturbing Images, and Brief Strong Language 

Summit Entertainment, Participant Media, Di Bonaventura Pictures

1 Hr and 47 Minutes

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez, Dylan O’Brien, Kate Hudson

REVIEW: Remember in 2010 when the BP oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico. It lasted nearly three months. I remember fondly being in school when it happened and by the time it became June I saw CNN at my grandmother’s house and went “oh my God, has that not been cleaned up yet? Wow fuck BP man” It costed America a lot of money to clean up and costed several lives when the explosion happened. Now we have director and Mark Wahlberg lover Peter Berg giving us the compelling true events behind the worst oil disaster in history.

 A story set on the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, which exploded during April 2010 and created the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

THE GOOD:  What makes Peter Berg a great director is how well he can mix and match a genre. With Lone Survivor you had both a biopic and a war film. Here you have a bio pic mixed with an action thriller. Instead of relying on big effects, he primarily puts his focus on the strength of characters. With this film you don’t really see much actors or acting performance wise (with the exception of Wahlberg who is a powerhouse) but more as real people. There are different conversations in the beginning that are both interesting and comedic. It goes by like an episode of the Office starring Marky Mark, MTV Teen Wolf, and Jane the Virgin but on a rig followed by a frightening explosion.

The film depicts BP as a money greed sack of shit of a company and they do it rightfully so. It truly was the actions of two people that fucked up the rig in the first place. The way Berg shows BP is a bigger fuck you since the South Park Coon trilogy.

Besides capturing genuine human emotion he also manages to maintain humanity within characters in each intense situation. Throughout the film, it constantly teases the explosion in many ways. One of the opening scenes shows a very less than subtle foreshadow of what was to come. But when the explosion comes, it comes as an unstoppable force that nobody could control and from there the film becomes more dramatic and intense. You see how the event took lives and traumatized the ones that survived. 

The cast really pulls it all together in this and their performances really stand out Wahlberg being sort of a hero giving them the good ol Wahlberg performance that naturally calms people down no matter how afraid they are. But by the end pulls a Captain Phillips Tom Hanks performance where he is so much in shock he just breaks. Kurt Russell who is as Kurt Russell as you can get but every bad luck turn onto him. Dirty O’Brien. I mean Dylan O’Brien who is covered in dirt through the majority of it yet has a country charm to him. And lastly we have Gina Rodriguez who is beautiful in her performance as she is beautiful in general. She has several scenes with Wahlberg that are human but by the end she gives the most genuinely terrifying performance that really had me in tears. In that situation you would freak out and she breaks down which made me break down. The film, one way or another will have you burst into tears and it earns each tear that runs down your face.

THE BAD: Deepwater Horizon is ridiculously expensive as in $156 million expensive. That is more expensive than a lesser Marvel film. For the most part when an explosion is needed its there so you know where the most of the film’s money went to. It has the same amount of explosions as a Michael Bay film but is actually used to an effect. It only overdoes the explosion count to capture the realism of the impact the event had with the people trapped on the rig. Then there are other CG effects that are there because it had the money to do it such as a pelican covered in oil flying around the rig’s control room. The way the effect was used is very questionable.

Not that this is a bad thing but, why is Kate Hudson and Kurt Russell in this film? Was one casted and convinced Berg to also hire his daughter or her dad? I Were they both casted and were like “DAD?!” “KATE?!” ts just not a complaint just a question. This is as odd of casting choice since Jaden and Will Smith starring in After Earth. But then again After Earth was all Will’s fault so fuck it.

LAST STATEMENT: Captivatingly intense and moving, Peter Berg’s Deepwater Horizon takes a strong cast that dedicate their time to provide enough humanity within character. With some brilliant performances by Wahlberg and Rodriguez, Deepwater Horizon is one of the best Bio-Pics to come this year.

Rating: 4/5 | 86%

Super Scene: What color is your car?