Director Peter Berg and star Mark Wahlberg delivered us two very good films in 2016, "Patriots Day" and DEEPWATER HORIZON.
Wahlberg stars as Mike Williams, Chief Electrical Engineer on the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon.
Along with his boss Mr. Jimmy (Kurt Russell), he has deep concerns about the sloppy set up procedures on the rig, seemingly rushed by the BP Oil Executives in a rush to the bottom line.
Jimmy and Mike push again and again that the behind schedule rig is not ready to begin tapping into the massive oil bed in the sea bottom three miles below.
When they're forced to begin anyway, a massive explosion of oil and then fire engulf the giant platform and all aboard are forced to fight for survival.
The film cleverly provides you with enough basic information about how the platform works that you understand the action when it happens.
Kate Hudson is terrific as Mike's wife Felicia, Gina Rodriguez is very good as a young engineer and Mike's right hand person and the always terrific John Malkovich is perfectly Cajun and slimy as the head BP executive on board who witnesses the results of his directives to cut corners.
The special effects are fantastic and scary as hell, the explosions of oil and fire that tear apart the rig are stunning in scale and their after effects are depicted so realistically that you feel like a camera crew was actually there.
DEEPWATER avoids the traps of traditional disaster films (long exposition and introduction of bland characters, silly escapes) by being true to the events in 2010 that resulted in the biggest oil spill in history.
Wahlberg and a strong cast do a great job of portraying everyday people doing their job and trapped in a massive inferno. How anyone escaped is a miracle.
Kurt Russell is very good in his role as the lead man on the rig trapped between doing the right thing and his limited power at the feet of the BP execs.
Berg and his writers just show the facts, they don't paint stereotypical portraits of the execs as mustache twirling bad guys, just as men who must face the startling consequences of their decisions.
As he did in "Patriot's Day", Berg bookends the film with audio and video clips of the actual people depicted, upping the human stakes of all the action within.
Suspenseful, visually stunning, fast moving and dramatic, DEEPWATER HORIZON gets a B.
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