DEEPWATER HORIZON
Director : Peter Berg
Year : 2016
Genre : Thriller
Rating : ****
Throughout the Summer of 2010, our TV screens and newspapers were filled with the horrifying images of a burst BP pipe leaking over four million barrels of oil into the Gulf Of Mexico. Causing incalculable damage to the environment and costing over $40bn, the disaster was and still remains the most damaging oil spill in US history. But while the immediate and lasting effects of the spill are now widely known thanks to highly publicised lawsuits and many ecological and biological campaigns, the actual cause of the disaster has remained somewhat of a mystery. But with the release of Peter Berg's exhilarating biographical thriller 'Deepwater Horizon', cinemagoers can finally learn the distressing and upsetting truths - truths which not only led to the record-breaking spill but also the shamefully unpublicised deaths of 11 innocent people.
Following his very successful collaboration with Berg on the critically acclaimed 2014 war drama 'Lone Survivor', Mark Wahlberg is absolutely terrific as Mike Williams, an everyday engineer who became a real-life hero when the titular drilling rig spontaneously exploded following a blowout caused by severely irresponsible managerial oversight - personified by John Malkovich's slimy (and bizarrely accented) site leader Donald Vidrine.
As is to be expected, the special effects used to bring the fiery devastation to life are frighteningly realistic and viscerally breathtaking but it is the sound design that really stands out here - expertly utilising the immersive surround system of the 21st century multiplex to genuinely stomach-churning and sometimes heart-stopping effect. The end result is a visually spectacular and surprisingly intelligent piece of disaster cinema that undoubtedly hearkens back to the golden age of the genre yet still remains a suitably moving tribute to those few who tragically lost their lives in this catastrophic and more importantly, preventable accident - a final rollcall of photographs proving to be a suitably poignant epitaph.
Following his very successful collaboration with Berg on the critically acclaimed 2014 war drama 'Lone Survivor', Mark Wahlberg is absolutely terrific as Mike Williams, an everyday engineer who became a real-life hero when the titular drilling rig spontaneously exploded following a blowout caused by severely irresponsible managerial oversight - personified by John Malkovich's slimy (and bizarrely accented) site leader Donald Vidrine.
As is to be expected, the special effects used to bring the fiery devastation to life are frighteningly realistic and viscerally breathtaking but it is the sound design that really stands out here - expertly utilising the immersive surround system of the 21st century multiplex to genuinely stomach-churning and sometimes heart-stopping effect. The end result is a visually spectacular and surprisingly intelligent piece of disaster cinema that undoubtedly hearkens back to the golden age of the genre yet still remains a suitably moving tribute to those few who tragically lost their lives in this catastrophic and more importantly, preventable accident - a final rollcall of photographs proving to be a suitably poignant epitaph.
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