Friday, September 30, 2016

MOVIE REVIEW - Deepwater Horizon

Mark Wahlberg continues to make movies with stories that need, and should be told. Deepwater Horizon is the latest flick to do this.

This is based on the story of the sinking of the massive oil rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf Of Mexico in April of 2010 where 11 men lost their lives.  We all kind of know what happened, but what really happened, and who are these brave people that work well off shore on those oil platforms?

This stars Wahlberg as Mike Williams, a real technician on the DH.  It also stars Kurt Russell, Kate Hudson, John Malkovich and Ethan Suplee in a nice breakout role for him.  All of our stars are actual real characters from the real story.  It is told from Williams point of view who somehow found his way off the DH under amazing circumstances. 

This movie puts you right on the DH, and place that we never get to go. How many of us have actually been on a rig?  The sets are amazing, and the casting of our characters and the total supporting cast is terrific.  The special effects are sensational, as this is extremely intense, exciting, and very suspenseful.  This is incredible movie making in every regard.

As far as the plot is concerned, this places the blame for this horrible disaster right at the feet of B.P. Oil.   They did NOT own the rig, as they hire companies who know what they are doing to drill and capture the oil. Here, the BP brass overrides the company and pushes the DH to over perform and go against protocol and safety procedures. This is not an anti-energy movie, but it is not afraid to place blame where they feel it belongs.

This movie also takes the time to let us get to know these people on these platforms. And shows us what kind of lives they lead, which none of us really know. They also explain what the DH was, and what role it played in the gulf.  And how the system works at large. This is a very exciting movie, that is right on time for this time of the year.  It's grown up, and is helping usher in the fall movie season where the better movies start showing up.

Deepwater Horizon. Flat out good all the way around.

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