Deepwater Horizon

Based on true events, Deepwater Horizon details the circumstances surrounding the 2010 disaster that befell the title oil rig – with the movie following the various men and women who were working aboard the massive installation when it exploded. It’s clear immediately that filmmaker Peter Berg is looking to ape the feel and tone of Paul Greengrass’ work, as Deepwater Horizon boasts a documentary-like feel that’s heightened by its low-key performances and general lack of context – with scripters Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand, in terms of the latter, delivering dialogue that tends to emphasize authenticity over exposition (ie much of this stuff sounds as though it was pulled directly from real-life transcripts). This nuts-and-bolts approach, while lending the proceedings an impressively credible vibe, prevents the viewer from wholeheartedly connecting to the characters or the increasingly perilous situation, with, especially, the movie’s first half riddled with realistic-seeming yet entirely uninvolving (and ludicrously complicated) sequences – including a fairly pivotal moment meant to explain what eventually goes wrong with the rig. And although Berg does manage to wring some tension out of the buildup to the aforementioned disaster, Deepwater Horizon, saddled with a collection of one-dimensional mouthpieces, proves unable to generate the thrills one might’ve anticipated in its action-heavy second half (ie it’s difficult to work up any rooting interest in the characters’ survival). The emotional closing stretch, at the very least, ensures that the film ends on an admittedly affecting note, and yet it’s ultimately impossible not to wish that the remainder of Deepwater Horizon had been similarly engrossing (particularly given the seemingly electrifying nature of the story’s true-life origins).

** out of ****