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"Deepwater Horizon" is Good Film, but Ignores Issues

On April 20, 2010, the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded while drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The explosion killed 11 crew members and resulted in the spilling of 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.

As with many other recent films, “Deepwater Horizon” has a predictable premise. Can a director take the United States’ worst environmental disaster and create a high-quality film out of it?

“Deepwater Horizon” answers that question in a challenging way. The film itself is an excellent disaster movie complete with fast-paced action scenes and a captivating atmosphere, but the environmental impact of the explosion was largely ignored by the film.

When Mike Williams, portrayed by Mark Wahlberg, first arrived on Deepwater Horizon, I was immediately drawn in. The visuals were very realistic and the overall size of the rig was staggering. The tall pipes, heavy machinery, and grimy, tired workers added to the realism of the film.

The main set for the movie was an 85-percent scale model of the drilling rig floating in a two million gallon tank of water. The size of the set makes it one of the largest in cinema history, and the practical effects used made the visuals in “Deepwater Horizon” the film’s best feature, especially when they lit the whole thing on fire.

Wahlberg’s take on the Deepwater Horizon’s chief electrician is another fine point to this film. Wahlberg’s simple acting style accurately portrays a down-to-earth, hardworking man, who finds himself in a position to be a hero. The film adequately establishes Willams’ backstory by giving the viewer a peek at his family life before he ships out to the rig. This excellent example of character creation helped me identify with Williams and allowed me to be present in his fear during the explosion and subsequent fire.

The film’s atmosphere became incredibly heavy and tense after the first signs of trouble aboard the rig. The pressure, both physical with respect to the oil well, and mental with respect to the music and the entire tone of the movie had my eyes glued to the screen in terror for much of the film. I genuinely felt concern for the characters even though I knew what was going to happen.

I expected this film to ignore the environmental impact of the BP spill. Disaster films like this one don’t generally highlight environmental issues; they’re all about the action. I am concerned that people will come away from this movie either not acknowledging or just completely forgetting about the massive ecological disaster caused by BP’s negligence.

We need to be able to enjoy a good film like this one and not forget about the oil spill. Let this film be about the deaths of 11 men and acknowledge that the deaths of these men were accompanied by an environmental disaster of massive proportions.

The lives of the men lost on Deepwater Horizon are generally overshadowed by the vastness of the oil spill. The film does its part to commemorate those 11 souls lost even while dramatizing their deaths. Before the credit reel, the film showed pictures and videos alongside the names of those lost in the explosion. The gesture of it was incredibly well thought out and made me realize that this film is about the men and women who were endangered by corporate greed and profit-mongering.

Despite not addressing the obvious environmental issues, “Deepwater Horizon” is a well-made disaster film. The realism of the set and the intensity of the acting and atmosphere bring the viewer into the film and allow for a very accurate glimpse into what the crew of the Deepwater Horizon experienced.


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