Might make you shout out loud

Rating: 7/10 (8 October 2016)

This film pleasantly surprised me by giving more entertainment value than expected, considering it's a true story, we all followed the news at the time and we know what happened. In trying to decide why it was such good entertainment, I think it's 70% due to the sheer realism of the scenes, and 30% due to the acting. I don't mean to imply the quality of the acting was only 30%, no; it was pretty good in my opinion. The quality of life and routine on the rig was covered very well, we should remember that even the helicopter trips there and back are a risk in their own right. In the post-accident scenes there's a tremendous sense of the sheer violence of the environment, more resembling a war zone during a bombardment than a workplace. The downside, though, at least for me, was that all this confusion led to a sense of my not knowing anything, really, about what was going on. Rather than a linear story line moving along a sequence of locations, we're in multiple locations with multiple story lines which blur into one another; with this technique the director does transmit the terrifying sense of "OMG what do we do now" that those on the rig must have suffered. Definitely worth watching.