Hands up if you’ve seen a film where Mark Wahlberg plays a
middle-class Average Joe who becomes an American hero after being thrust into
extraordinary life-threatening circumstances. Hands up if it was based on a true
story? Hands up if it was directed by Peter Berg? While statistically we’re
only talking about one other movie – Lone Survivor – it sure feels like we’ve seen this one before. Wahlberg stars as Mike Williams, an engineer aboard the doomed (and retrospectively ominously dubbed) oil rig Deepwater Horizon. Against the advice of supervisor “Mister Jimmy” (Kurt Russell), BP execs (led by a seedy John Malkovich) press on with the drilling operation, sparking catastrophe when the rig ignites.
Deepwater Horizon is competently told, frightening when it needs to be and rousingly admiring of its real-life heroes in the obligatory epilogue in which we see photos of the real-life casualties. That’s the thing about Deepwater Horizon, though; it’s entirely inoffensive because it plays very much by the numbers of how you’d expect this film to bear out. Deepwater Horizon never truly transcends the genre it inhabits.
As a piece of narrative fiction, Deepwater Horizon isn’t particularly thick. Its characters are largely indistinguishable, set apart largely by the fact that they’re played by different recognizable performers who lean heavily on their reputations or, in the case of Malkovich, an accent bordering on the ludicrous. These are largely seasoned veterans, quite comfortable in their cinematic personas. Wahlberg is in top “say hi to your mother for me” mode and looks suitably beleaguered by the harrowing disaster he endures. And Russell is finely stalwart as Mister Jimmy, commanding the respect of his employees in a way that never beggars credulity. But it’s not as though there are any surprises in this one as far as acting goes. Ditto for the story, which ends up being a vehicle for big explosions and opportunities for individual heroism (usually shot against a billowing American flag, which is astonishingly flame-retardant).
When it comes to the spectacle, though, Deepwater Horizon is sufficiently compelling and doesn’t disappoint. Indeed, it calls to mind an oceanic Alien, claustrophobic with no shortage of renegade scenery ready to pop out without a moment’s notice. As with character, the film is unfulfillingly thin on plot, but its special-effects sequences are engaging and amply terrifying, though I’m not sure they have the staying power that make the film strongly memorable.
Trailers before Deepwater Horizon reveal that Berg and Wahlberg are reuniting for Patriots Day, a film about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Whether this is the final installment of a thematic trilogy or the shape of things to come, there isn’t much to suggest that another film won’t be anything but more of the same. This “same” is fine enough, but it’s doubtful that the third time’s going to flip the script. If you’ve enjoyed it before, you’ll like it again, but unlike the depths which its protagonists plumb Deepwater Horizon proves to be a little shallower than filmgoers might appreciate.
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