"The well from hell"... Epic disaster movie more than delivers

Rating: 8/10 (13 October 2016)

"Deepwater Horizon" (2016 release; 107 min.) brings the story of the 2010 oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. As the movie opens, we see Mike and Felicia wake up, shortly before Mike is off on his next 21 day stint on the rig. Mike and other gather at the Bristow heliport, where they leave on the 45 min. flight out to the rig. On the flight are also 2 BP senior manager, who are coming to take a look why the rip is 43 days (and tens of millions of dollars) behind schedule. Once on the Deepwater Horizon, it doesn't take long before tension mounts between the BP guys and the Transocean guys who are operating the rig. At this point we're 15 min. into the movie.
Couple of comments: this movie marks the reunion between director Peter Berg and Mark Walhberg (who stars and produces), as a few year ago they brought us the excellent "Lone Survivor". At the beginning of the film, we are told that this is "based on true events", which for me typically means "this is the Hollywood version of what happened". I have no idea how much artistic liberty the film makers have taken to make this into a compelling movie. As long as you can live with the fact that this is perhaps (or likely) a condensed or partly-imagined version of the truth, you are in for one heck of a film. Indeed, the film is roughly divided up equally between pre-disaster, and then the actual disaster. Just when you think that it can't get any worse, it does, and I found myself at the edge of my seat on more than one occasion. The photography is pure eye-candy from start to finish (quite a bit must've been CGI but it sure looks incredibly real). There are some great lines in the movie. When asked by the BP guy to assess the rig, Mike says "It's like a plane running out of gas as it's landing", wow. And someone else comments that the rig is sitting on "the well from hell", ha! Walhberg is his usual solid, but the best performances for me came from rugged Kurt Russell (as "Mr. Jimmy", the rig's manager) and, even better, John Malkovich as one of the BP meanies.
"Deepwater Horizon" opened a few weekends ago, but scheduling conflicts and other commitment kept me from seeing this until now. The Thursday early evening screening where I saw this at here in Cincinnati was not attended well (not a surprise, given the time and day). What is surprising is that, despite mostly positive reviews and reactions from the critic and the public at large, it has vastly under-performed at the box office, even more so if you keep in mind the movie's astronomical (north of 100 mill) budget (and the movie looks its budget). I was looking forward to seeing this, and I ended up liking it even more than I had expected. A movie like this needs to be experienced on the big screen for maximum impact. "Deepwater Horizon" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!