British Petroleum (BP) cuts corners on safety inspections at the floating oil rig Deepwater Horizon because it is behind schedule, leading to a catastrophic failure and blowout endangering the lives of the 116 workers on board. Chief Engineer Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) tries to rescue as many as he can from the fiery disaster.
Fun fact! The Gulf still hasn't fully recovered from this, the largest oil spill in U.S. history. BP paid $4 billion in fines but not a single employee spent a day in jail.
Of the two Disaster Directors (that is, directors who mainly do disaster movies, not directors who are disasters), Roland Emmerich is for large-scale, world-ending stuff while Peter Berg focuses on smaller, more human-focused stories. Not a dig on either, just an observation.
I didn't love this movie, although I think it's very competently done. The script is tight, characterizations are bare-bones but enough, John Malkovich's evil executive is very evil and Malkovich-y even though his accent kept tripping me. Kurt Russell is great. Kate Hudson is also in this, but they don't have any scenes together. It just feels overwrought to me.
Deepwater Horizon is currently streaming on (sigh) Max.
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