Spilled venture

Rating: 5/10 (3 November 2018)

Deepwater Horizon charts the story of one of the worst environmental disasters in history. BP cut corners, did not do proper safety tests that led to death and destruction.
Set in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. Deepwater Horizon is an exploration oil rig hired by BP for deepwater drilling.
We get to meet the crew. Grizzled veteran Jimmy Harrell (Kurt Russell) is the supervisor, safety conscious and suspicious of the men in suits who he thinks are bean counters and not concerned about safety.
Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) is the electronics technician. The villain of the piece, representing BP management is Donald Vidrine (John Malkovich.)
The build up to disaster takes half the movie and frankly the first half is not very gripping. The second part of the movie deals with the disaster. When things go wrong, there is chaos. The oil gushes out, there are explosions, fires are started, water and mud is coming in and people are in jeopardy.
Only Malkovich makes an impression with a laconic performance. Wahlberg might well had been invisible. The characters are paper thin and uninteresting.
Director Peter Berg comes across as a substandard Michael Bay. This is a technically well made film but it lacks heart. Worse the environmental devastation of the oil spill is glossed over.