Bluster Action Film of Personal Tragedy

Rating: 6/10 (2 October 2016)

Peter Berg of "Battleship" fame tries to get personal by focusing more on crewmember Mark Wahlberg, and his wife, than on the bigger picture that was the Deepwater disaster. I half expected Wahlberg to shift into his eastern accent from "The Perfect Storm". Of course, Wahlberg's character is everybody's buddy on the ship ("say hello to your Ma for me"). We spend 20 minutes with Wahlberg and his wife for the big goodbye scene before he heads off to the oil rig. Although he is only off the coast, not on the other side of the world, and is constantly live streaming his wife. Berg only slightly gets a pedestrian feel here, certainly better than director Michael Bay did with Wahlberg in Transformers 4 (2 hours and 45 minutes of my life I will never get back). The photography is straight action material (compare to the documentary feel with "Captain Phillips"). Unfortunately, so is the dialogue. Much of it sounds like the corny dialogue from a dumb action movie.
Leave it to John Malkovich to personify a character better than anyone else. He was genuinely creepy as a mid-level corporate shill. Kurt Russell is the responsible member of the crew that stands up to the corporate moneymen. I'm sure most of these characters said similar things in similar situations, but it stills sounds cliché; "The safety of my crew comes first" (or something like that).
If you judge this film as a disaster film, and are ready to be treated to nonstop action and explosions for the entire second half of the movie, you will be well satisfied. The effects work is very well done, and the nonstop explosions create serious tension as the crew tries to first reattain control then try to escape. I mention "Captain Phillips" in comparison to this movie, because that film also tried to bring to the screen a real life event. But comparing the editing, the choice of music, the casting and acting, and the documentary feel of the cinematography, Deepwater Horizon feels staged in places. Expectations were for this film to attract big action moviegoers, and the first weekend box office showed soft results when I wrote this review. It seems that it is either too soon, too personal, or lifelike to find the "Diehard" audience. I felt it held well as an action piece with a decent budget, but maybe I should judge it for the Oscar audience, which in that case forget about it.