Deepwater Horizon (15.)
Directed by Peter Berg.
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, Gina Rodriguez, John Malkovich, Dylan O'Brien and Kate Hudson. 108 mins
Near the beginning of this re-staging of the 2010 oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, there is a scene that will chime with anyone frustrated by the general inaudibility of dialogue in Hollywood films. While flying in by helicopter Mr. Jimmy (Russell) notices something happening on his rig that he doesn't approve of. As the helicopter lands he interrogates the welcoming committee about it beneath the din of the still whirling blades. Afterwards he is asked what they said and admits that he couldn't hear a thing.
It’s a nice touch but a little too close to the bone for a film that is a purgatory of exposition. Its first half is spent trying, and largely failing, to explain what is happening on the Deepwater Horizon, a floating station that researched new reserves before other rigs came in to do the drilling. First Wahlberg's daughter gives us a trial run over breakfast of her school presentation about her daddy's job. Once on the rig, men in helmets talk about pressure, mud, cement presuming we'll pick up enough info to get by. The second half takes is all explosions and buckling metal – you can’t hear anything but fire and explosions are their own exposition.
It seems to be a point of principle among Hollywood screenwriters that all exposition must be slipped in surreptitiously, usually as some kind of co-worker banter – to actually take five minutes of their time to present an explanation is seen as a cop out, a shameful act. Outside of certain European arthouse epics, I can't remember a film where I had so little idea of what was going on.
Deepwater doesn’t seem to have had the budget to quite do justice to the spectacle, but Berg has the skill to work around the limitations: the fast editing and close up, hand held shots really get across a sense of chaos and confusion. The rig seems to be bursting at its seams with deadly rivets springing from the walls and bulleting through the air. Berg used to be thought of as a Michael Mann, mini-me. Now though, with this and Lone Survivor, he is more like a grown up Michael Bay, and this is a companion piece to Bay's last film, 13 Hours; a true story all about the heroics of individual men working in tough environment, who are let down by the higher ups
The film is described as “A True Story of Real Life Heroes.” And there was you thinking that this was an ecological disaster. Hollywood can find a heroic angle to everything it seems but in that case the heroics are just there to as a hook to involve audiences in an expose of corporate indifference and carelessness.
Directed by Peter Berg.
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, Gina Rodriguez, John Malkovich, Dylan O'Brien and Kate Hudson. 108 mins
Near the beginning of this re-staging of the 2010 oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, there is a scene that will chime with anyone frustrated by the general inaudibility of dialogue in Hollywood films. While flying in by helicopter Mr. Jimmy (Russell) notices something happening on his rig that he doesn't approve of. As the helicopter lands he interrogates the welcoming committee about it beneath the din of the still whirling blades. Afterwards he is asked what they said and admits that he couldn't hear a thing.
It’s a nice touch but a little too close to the bone for a film that is a purgatory of exposition. Its first half is spent trying, and largely failing, to explain what is happening on the Deepwater Horizon, a floating station that researched new reserves before other rigs came in to do the drilling. First Wahlberg's daughter gives us a trial run over breakfast of her school presentation about her daddy's job. Once on the rig, men in helmets talk about pressure, mud, cement presuming we'll pick up enough info to get by. The second half takes is all explosions and buckling metal – you can’t hear anything but fire and explosions are their own exposition.
It seems to be a point of principle among Hollywood screenwriters that all exposition must be slipped in surreptitiously, usually as some kind of co-worker banter – to actually take five minutes of their time to present an explanation is seen as a cop out, a shameful act. Outside of certain European arthouse epics, I can't remember a film where I had so little idea of what was going on.
Deepwater doesn’t seem to have had the budget to quite do justice to the spectacle, but Berg has the skill to work around the limitations: the fast editing and close up, hand held shots really get across a sense of chaos and confusion. The rig seems to be bursting at its seams with deadly rivets springing from the walls and bulleting through the air. Berg used to be thought of as a Michael Mann, mini-me. Now though, with this and Lone Survivor, he is more like a grown up Michael Bay, and this is a companion piece to Bay's last film, 13 Hours; a true story all about the heroics of individual men working in tough environment, who are let down by the higher ups
The film is described as “A True Story of Real Life Heroes.” And there was you thinking that this was an ecological disaster. Hollywood can find a heroic angle to everything it seems but in that case the heroics are just there to as a hook to involve audiences in an expose of corporate indifference and carelessness.
