Above all, a tribute to the 11 men who lost their lives

Rating: 7/10 (25 April 2018)

The film makers wisely focus their main effort on portraying the very real dangers involved in the offshore E&P business (even down to bird strikes that can play havoc with equipment) and how things can so easily go wrong, risking the lives of the people at the front end.
Unfortunately, they did fall into the trap of following the US business and government narrative at the time, throwing all the blame onto a foreign oil company that was making serious inroads into 'their' business. While not wishing to excuse BP from their significant responsibility, subsequent investigations have shown culpability in the series of errors that led to the disaster to be shared among a number of companies involved, most of them American.
Nevertheless, since the film mainly follows the technical complexity of the operations taking place and reactions under the severest stress, it is an action movie that stands as an effective tribute to those 11 men who died so tragically, as well as the heroism and professional competence of many of those who survived.
My main spoiler is to point out that the Wahlberg character, while representing a specific individual, actually incorporated several individuals on the platform and is shown doing numerous things that were actually done by others. Why can't Hollywood just recognise the heroism in most people, working together as a team, instead of concentrating it into a single superhero? This is supposed to be a 'real-world' event, after all!