The movie is as much about science and engineering as it is about survival.
Wait, what? “Based on a true story of real life heroes”? Wasn’t the Deepwater Horizon that total cluster-you-know-what of incompetence and corporate greed that spilled an ungodly amount of oil all over the Gulf of Mexico? Yes, it is. But this is not that story. This movie doesn’t even get into the oil spill itself — which went on for months and is still the biggest ever anywhere — or the cleanup and long-term impact of what turned out to be the worst U.S. environmental disaster to date. Nope, this is just about the explosion on that offshore oil-drilling rig, in April 2010, and the immediate aftermath for those onboard, most of whom were just regular grunts who weren’t to blame for the disaster.
Ah, but were they heroes, or just poor schmoes unlucky enough to get caught up in catastrophe? Well, at least some of what Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg), Deepwater Horizon’s chief electronics technician, did in the hellscape that the rig became definitely qualifies as heroism of the “risking your life to save others” variety. And since director Peter Berg seems to have gone to great lengths to stick to the truth of the events — including having survivors on set as consultants — I’m gonna give the movie the benefit of the doubt and presume that the selflessly heroic actions of other characters here also really happened.
Like Berg’s previous film, Lone Survivor, about a calamitous real-life military mission in Afghanistan, Deepwater Horizon is immensely intense and suspenseful even when you already know the general outcome. This is disaster filmmaking at its most gripping, and yet (also like Lone Survivor) there is nothing the least bit exploitive or sensationalized about it. Horizon is exhausting partly because it feels real, not exaggerated. Even though the vessel Deepwater Horizon has something of a science-fiction feel to it, this huge monster of a machine is a boat: It floats. You kinda can’t help but gawp at the awesomeness of it. The film does an amazing job of explaining the deeply complex and technical work of an offshore oil prospecting and drilling rig in a clever way — via Williams’ daughter’s school report on her dad’s job. Using just a can of Coke and a straw, she helps us understand how the Horizon works…and how it can fail. This is an action disaster movie that’s as much about science and engineering as it is about survival.
But what we see here is downright horrifying. The delicate machine that is the Horizon has not been well maintained. If there’s any humor in this movie at all, it is of the grim kind, as Williams chews out a BP exec (a hiss-worthy John Malkovich) for how the company refuses to make time and money available for desperately needed maintenance. And it’s all in Wahlberg’s delightful fast-talking style, until he slows down for the conclusion: “money-hungry sons-a-bitches.” BP does not come off well here, as it shouldn’t.
The Horizon is already over budget and behind schedule on its current mission, so there’s a rush to cap off the well so it can move on. The capping is done poorly, there are leaks of methane from the well, and BOOM!
What comes after that is rather like Titanic except with mud and fire instead of cold and ice, and with no romance (thank goodness no one felt a need to shove one in). Deepwater Horizon should be proud to be in its company: Titanic is an amazing film about (among other things) corporate greed and how it’s the little people who pay when big companies put profit above all else.
It’s too soon to say — that well might still be leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico, and BP is still in business — but perhaps someday, in a hotter future, the Deepwater Horizon disaster will be seen as a powerful metaphor for humanity’s arrogance in the same way that the sinking of the Titanic is. If so, Peter Berg may have created a film for the ages.
