Deepwater Horizon is an American action film depicting the horrific oil rig accident by the same name in April of 2010. The subsequent oil spill was the largest in US History. This film is the story of that accident. 

Deepwater Horizon was written by Matthew Sand and directed by Peter Berg. The film boasts outstanding visual effects and sports an all-star cast. 

Cast:

Mark Wahlberg

Kury Russell

John Malkovich

Gina Rodriguez

Dylan O'Brien

Kate Hudson

Trace Adkins

Brad Leland

There are several others as well, but those are the most prominent cast members and the most well known. 

Plot:

The story begins with us being introduced to the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig. It is a state of the art deep water drilling rig owned by Transocean set to begin drilling on behalf of British Petroleum. Corners get skipped early on in an effort to get the rig up and running as quickly as possible. 

Mike Williams (Wahlberg) discovers early on that proper pressure tests were not performed. He realizes this could cause a major issue and decides to take this information to his boss, James Harrell (Russell) before going through with the drilling. Harrell agrees that this short-cut could be a major issue going forward so he confronts his boss Donald Vidrine (Malkovich) and urges him to perform the pressure tests before proceeding with the drilling. 

Vidrine reluctantly agrees that the tests need to be performed, so he orders them to be conducted. However, instead of waiting for the results of those tests he proceeds with drilling anyways. This would prove to be a fatal error. 

The drilling doesn't even last a full day before there is a major blowout from the pressure building up and the concrete walls crumbling. Proper tests being done would have shown whether they could or could not withstand such an event. However, for the sake of urgency, those were skipped. 

Soon there is an explosion to follow as natural gas and oil are openly leaking out of the well now. The explosion sets the rig on fire and injures several of the workers. Some are even thrown from the rig into the ocean. The rig overseers try to call in to the Coast Guard to let them know what is going on, but they are told not to as the rig itself isn't in any danger yet. 

Once the well can be sealed off the rest they can control themselves...

I won't go into any more of the plot if you haven't seen the film or aren't familiar with the story yet. If you want to know what happens from here, you will just have to rent the flick! :)

Reception:

The overall reception has been pretty positive from critics and viewers alike. Casual viewers have reviewed it overwhelmingly positively. 

Rotten tomatoes has an 83% overall approval rate while IMDB rates it as a 7.2/10. 

One critic claimed:

 "I’ll be honest, I didn’t think we needed a movie about this subject. I’ve changed my mind. And, if nothing else, I hope it gets people angry again, because the people who did this to our planet, and killed 11 people in the process, got off too easy." 

Financially the film hasn't done as well as it might have hoped. It has generated close to $120 million in revenue thus far, but with a budget in the $115 million range, it is barely profitable at this point. My opinion is that once the word gets out how great this film is I would expect that to change. This is the kind of film that will be watched for years and years to explain what happened on that fateful April day. 

My Review:

I thought the film was outstanding. From the acting, to the special effects, to the writing, to the story itself. It was all done extremely well. Need I say anything else? I will anyways. :)

First, the cast is awesome. They were able to ensemble some of my favorite actors and get them all playing roles they fit extremely well. John Malkovich has been one of my favorite actors since his days in Rounders and Con Air, he just plays that guy you wanna hate so well! A trend that continues in this film. 

Secondly, the special effects are some of the best you will see in any movie, ever. Seeing this film on the big screen felt like you were actually there. Some of the minor criticisms were that the producers spent too much money to create this movie. Well, some of that extra spend can been seen with the amazing special effects, I for one am glad for the over spend. 

Thirdly, the story is one that needs to be told. Most people have heard this story and remember it on the news, but I for one had no idea how horrific it was for the people involved. It really was a terrifying experience for all those hundred plus employees with 11 of them losing their lives that I felt the media didn't really play up that much when it was actually happening. They seemed to be more focused on the financial aspect of it related to BP. 

Finally, the movie does a great job of being serious yet entertaining at the same time. The point of the movie was to tell of a horrific accident but they did it in a way that kept you on the edge of your seat the entire time. There were multiple times when I had to tell myself to breath as I hadn't noticed that I had been holding my breath, how's that for some suspense! ;)

My overall rating would be 9.5/10.

The only reason it doesn't get a perfect score is because, well, "perfection is unattainable" (what movie is that line from?). 

I highly recommend watching this film if you haven't already. It was definitely one of my favorite films of 2016. They are able to cram the entire story in just over an hour and a half of non stop excitement. It's at redbox right now, rent it. 

Live well my friends!

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_(film)

Image Sources:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1860357/mediaindex?ref_=ttmi_ref_mi

Follow: @jrcornel

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