Deepwater Horizon

Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell and John Malkovich bring to life the devastating oil-rig disaster in this intelligent and incendiary eco-thriller.

The devastating oil-rig disaster is revisited in this rarest of thrillers; one that stuns with spectacular action sequences while never insulting our intelligence. A quartet of leading players bring to life the story of the 2010 tragedy: Mark Wahlberg’s everyman engineer, Kurt Russell as a grizzled safety chief, Gina Rodriguez as his deputy and a wonderfully wicked John Malkovich as the callous company man who places profits above safety.

And while the performers’ charm and naturalism ensure a script full of technical jargon remains relatable, director Peter Berg (adapting a detailed New York Times expose) portrays the fateful day’s procedural passage with commendable fidelity. Incendiary, in both senses of the word, Deepwater Horizon is both a fantastically explosive disaster movie, but also a raging invective against the corporation ultimately responsible for one of the worst oil disasters in history.