Review – Deepwater Horizon

When people ask me to describe a movie to them, I try to condense the overall thought into a sentence or two.  When one of my buddies asked me to describe Peter Berg’s latest film, Deepwater Horizon, it took me a bit to describe the movie because of the emotion and intensity of the film.  But, if I was narrow down Deepwater Horizon to one sentence it would be this:

The second VHS of Titanic (1997) with fire.

Now, for my younger readers, when Titanic was initially released for home viewing, it was released on VHS and because the movie was so long, it was on two tapes.  The first tape covered everything up until the ship sinking.  The second tape was the hour and a half climax of the ship collapsing, clearly the better of the two tapes.  It is exhilarating, emotional, and jaw-dropping.

That is exactly what the entire Deepwater Horizon is.  It is emotional, exhilarating, and jaw-dropping.

Deepwater Horizon takes a look at the April 2010 disaster when the offshore drilling rig, Deepwater Horizon, exploded and created the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Director Peter Berg has made some great films, like Friday Night Lights (2004) and Lone Survivor (2014), and some pretty awful movies, like Battleship (2012).  Deepwater Horizon could be argued as his best effort yet as a director.  Berg’s handheld, realistic way of shooting films is perfect for this movie.  He throws us right into the middle of this horrific accident and we feel everything.  We are scared and on the edge of our seats while everyone on board is trying to escape and we are sad when tragedy strikes.  The set pieces are thrilling, as the movie is nail-bitingly intense and does not let up.

The cast does a great job, overall.  Mark Wahlberg does a fine job, and actually has one of his most emotional and powerful scenes of his career towards the end of the film.  Kurt Russell is great, as usual.  John Malkovich rocks a Cajun accent and brings a smarmy attitude not seen from him in a while.  And, given the fact that she was given the character of “worrisome wife”, Kate Hudson does some of the best work she’s done in a long, long time.

Deepwater Horizon would have been gotten a perfect rating on Kevflix had the film not stream towards preachy at some parts.  Berg wants to hammer home the fact that this was BP’s fault and nobody else and, by the end of the movie, that’s exactly how we feel.  There are a number of scenes of BP reticule and blaming.  So many, in fact, it comes to a point of, “Look, we get it, BP fucked up.  Can we just move on?

Other than the BP blamefest, Deepwater Horizon is one of the most harrowing and intense movies of 2016.  It is one of Berg’s best efforts yet as a director and shows that he and Wahlberg are growing to become a power actor/director combo.

MY RATING – 3.5/4

Did you see Deepwater Horizon?  What did you think?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter and Instagram, @kevflix,or find me on Facebook and YouTube by searching Kevflix.