Deepwater Horizon

A straightforward script turned into a well-crafted catastrophic hell with some clichés, but an emotionally dignified, impressive ending. For me, this was the first disaster movie so intense that I don’t want to watch it again for the pleasure of quality filmmaking. As usual, Mark Wahlberg works well as the “suburban folk hero”, and Kurt Russell as the responsible boss of the group of young workers gives the movie’s best performance. And John Malkovich was in it for the money. I’d have preferred to see someone else, even a less famous actor, in his role of the unscrupulous businessman. (29/09/2016)

A catastrophic inferno that looks great. Peter Berg combined sweet sweeping camerawork and breathtaking explosions with a dignified memorial to the worker or his superiors who got killed or maimed for money, money, money. Criticism of contemporary corporate thinking isn’t really the crux of this movie, but, as we find out in the end, Malkovich is just the type of slippery bastard who is guilty on all counts, but who get away Scott-free. Carnahan’s targeted screenplay that concentrates on facts, Berg gives us the occasional visual gem: for instance, the shot of the American flag with the burning oil rig in the background, or the shot of Kate Hudson’s butt in panties (just hugging daddy Kurt), but the finale is a homage to all experts. Engineers, maintenance men, foremen, bosses who got their job on the basis of their experience and not from sitting on their asses. A very good job. I’m content. (06/10/2016)

Another reason to cut down on driving your car. And I have to admit that I am really glad that this movie was made. Without embellishment, it shows absolutely precisely what interests BP had on the oil rig and how the company was willing to literally walk over dead bodies to achieve its interests. The film as such then quite intensely and relatively exactly depicts the disaster as if it had been filmed by Greengrass himself. Not only was the film expensive, but you can really see it was. And that’s despite the fact that sometimes it feels like the camera was attached to a merry-go-round or a rollercoaster. But that actually serves a point as well. It amplified the atmosphere in order to make the viewer think as if they were really on the rig with the rest of the actors. And there’s no doubt the authors managed to achieve that effect. I was as confused as a forest bee and the only thing that could put me to a similar level of confusion that Mark Wahlberg experienced on the screen was the series of explosions, which I could survive through a certain coincidence. The only reason I didn’t give the movie a five-star review was that there is not a single character the viewer could really identify with or root for and that’s despite the fact that Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell and John Malkovich all put in absolutely excellent performances. Mark actually puts in a standard patriotic performance, whereas Kurt and John are trying to compete for the worst American accent and the best acting performance. And they both succeed. At the end, you get a smaller load of traditional American patriotism, which on the one hand is terribly obvious, but on the other hand, I actually don’t hold it against them. The afterword is pointless, but it’s necessary for American viewers. Other than that, it was great… or rather terribly sad. The more money we have, the more liberties we are ready to take with our mother Earth. The question is how much longer this can go on… (30/09/2016)

Working on an oil rig must be a very rewarding experience. When everything is going smoothly, you twist the cap of the pipeline a few times, pump the crap that is as repugnant to nature activists as a bucket of absinthe is to teetotalers, and you get an outrageous amount of money for it, and in your free time you worry only about how to best refit your million-dollar yacht. And then, when everything unexpectedly goes to hell, Hollywood makes a movie about you and you are the greatest hero since Nicolas Cage in the World Trade Center. Fortunately, contrary to my previous sentences, Berg has made such a sincere, empathetic and, in the end, even emotional epitaph on the fate of the unfortunate few who gave their lives due to sheer corporate bureaucracy and greed that I wouldn't be surprised if all the survivors wanted to have a beer with him every night for the rest of their lives. The plot is full of clichés and John Malkovich's character is exactly the annoying prototype of the irrational person who does everything they can to cause trouble in spite of everyone else, but otherwise it all comes across as authentic, intense and, hand in hand with a minimum of inaccessible shots, painful. And it's good that the clear culprit is neither the weather nor a technical glitch, but a failure of the human factor, and that the involvement of the protagonist's personal life doesn't come across as sentimental, but as the only 100% compelling way to realise what, above all, a person can lose when doing a dangerous job. Peter Berg has gone from a director of dull action stuff to a respected maker of real action flicks, and that's a good thing... 75% (26/12/2016)

Awesome spectacle. The opening 20-minute handheld camera shot, which looks like a semi-documentary about blokes on oil rigs, is perhaps even cooler than the occasionally slightly stereotypical and frenetically edited banging and destroying everything possible and impossible. Kurt Russel and Mark Wahlberg are both top-notch, in roles that fit them perfectly, so almost everyone will be rooting for them. A minimum of pathos and a decent portion of unadulterated emotions speak for Berg. I think this is a decent tribute to another catastrophe that affected millions of people. It’s not as precisely documentary-like as United 93 for instance, but it’s not nearly as pathetic as the likes of World Trade Center. (02/10/2016)