Deepwater Horizon feels like a film that’s missing its third act.

If there were such a thing as a ‘True Story’ shared cinematic universe (okay, I guess technically there is), the authorities of that universe would no doubt be monitoring Mark Wahlberg very closely indeed. His presence at the sites of natural disasters or terrorist attacks is becoming so common, he’s almost the Stan Lee of real-life drama.

Retelling the story of the Deepwater Horizon disaster which cost eleven lives and resulted in the largest marine oil spill in history is a sensitive task, given the recency of the events and the controversy surrounding the aftermath but Director Peter Berg, no stranger to directing real life drama – or Mark Wahlberg for that matter – skilfully avoids sensationalising the drama by adopting a quasi-documentary tone.

While this does much to remove the potential sting of the real life tragedy, it does somewhat leave the audience adrift in a script heavy with technical jargon. Thanks to the skills of the cast and their performances, you catch much of the drift of what’s going on but it feels a little lazy to rely on the audience’s foreknowledge rather than finding an organic way to provide the exposition which would be supplied by a narrator were this really a documentary.

While the film does an excellent job of showing the run up to the disaster and the explosion and chaos itself, overall “Deepwater Horizon” feels like a movie missing its third act. After all the pyrotechnic savagery of the accident itself, most of the meaty drama of the event took place in the weeks and months afterwards. Aside from appropriately memorialising the individuals who died in the explosion, the film doesn’t show us much of anything to do with the catastrophic environmental damage which occurred, the struggles to finally cap off the well or the grubby corporate and legal manoeuvrings which followed.

Technically proficient and tastefully handled, “Deepwater Horizon” nevertheless feels unfinished and underwhelming. In delivering a glossy but sincere disaster movie, it misses the chance to create a powerful indictment on not only the incident itself, but everything that followed.

deepwater horizon review
Score 7/10


Hi there! If you enjoyed this post, why not sign up to get new posts sent straight to your inbox?

Sign up to receive a weekly digest of The Craggus' latest posts.

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

logo

Related posts

Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (2011) Review

Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (2011) Review

Dark Of The Moon sees Michael Bay unleashed. Emboldened and empowered by the success of the first two films, there’s nobody involved in this production now who’s willing or able to restrain Michael Bay so "Transformers: Dark Of The Moon" is an exercise in lavish, indulgent excess. Aside...

Trolls World Tour (2020) Review

Trolls World Tour (2020) Review

In a season already overloaded with candy, Trolls World Tour offers a further opportunity to exceed your RDA of artificial colourings and synthetic sweetener. The long-awaited follow-up to overachieving 2016 smash “Trolls” finally hits screens in controversial and reduced...

Love Actually (2003) Review

Love Actually (2003) Review

Life is like a box of chocolates and so is Love Actually. Richard Curtis’ “Love Actually” is often misunderstood as an ensemble romantic comedy, intertwining numerous criss-crossing plots in the run up to Christmas. It is, in fact, an avante garde adaptation of a grand British Christmas...

mother! (2017) Review

mother! (2017) Review

Not even Nick Knowles could help J-Law with a DIY SOS of this magnitude I have a near-pathological dislike of people coming into my home uninvited or unannounced and I remember when we first moved into the house we live in, it had a front door which, if it was unlocked, you could...

Treehouse Of Horror XVI

Treehouse Of Horror XVI

Treehouse Of Horror XVI opens with Kodos and Kang watching a boring baseball match and deciding to speed up time to avoid delaying the Simpsons Halloween Special. Unfortunately, it runs out of control , destroying the totality of existence. It's fine though, they leave a note. B. I...

What If… the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes? take an Avengers: Endgame internet meme and gives it a twist

What If... the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes? take an Avengers: Endgame internet meme and gives it a twist

WHAT IF…THE WORLD LOST ITS MIGHTIEST HEROES? is the first episode of the series so far to take its central question and wrap it not around a speculative exploration but around a central mystery instead. It’s a mystery that I managed to solve well ahead of its narrative reveal, though...

Pete’s Dragon (2016) Review

Pete's Dragon (2016) Review

Disney refashions its musical comedy as a poignant environmental adveture Disney’s hot streak of adapting their animated back catalogue into live action movies shows no signs of abating with this deeply poignant reimagining of the 1977 musical comedy "Pete's Dragon". As the...

Alien³ (1992) Review

Alien³ (1992) Review

Abandon hope all ye who enter here... For a film that's often dismissed as the unloved child of the Alien franchise, Alien³ is actually the misunderstood brooding artist in a family of action heroes— misinterpreted, introspective, and definitely not here to make you comfortable...