Critic Reviews

This is very much an ensemble film, with Wahlberg, Hudson and Russell turning in performances that get the job done without begging for attention.

An action flick entertaining enough to justify the more than $100 million it took to make it come alive on-screen. And come alive, Deepwater Horizon does, in 107 minutes of terse, tight storytelling, a good 95 of which are white-knuckle tense.

Berg offers a visceral experience that overwhelms with startling humanity.

What works almost disturbingly well is the way Berg calibrates his delivery of the disaster while still holding on to the human scale of it.

Their chief adversary is the greedy, heedless BP executive played by John Malkovich in his finest slinky-slimy mode. At its best, the movie is like “The Towering Inferno” but without all the sudsy subplots that doused that film’s fires.

It’s a hero story for wonks and scientists, people who spend their days surrounded by dry-erase boards inked with numbers and grids and yet go to work in a jumpsuit, their faces smeared with muck.

When all hell breaks loose, Berg stages the action horribly well, capturing the panic and gruesome mayhem without the film ever feeling exploitative. It’s spectacularly constructed, yet it doesn’t forget about the loss of life, ensuring that, despite thin characterisation, the impact is felt.

Director Peter Berg and star Mark Wahlberg deliver the goods again with a rugged drama about an incident that created an environmental disaster and a worldwide scandal.

An efficient and no-nonsense depiction of the worst disaster in US oil drilling history, buoyed by excellent performances.

Deepwater Horizon is effective, efficient and furiously paced.