Deepwater Horizon - Film Review

Based off of true events, the movie Deepwater Horizon depicts how an oil drilling rig explodes causing eleven deaths of crew members on the site. The rig is named Deepwater Horizon, and it was located in the Gulf of Mexico. The movie was released on September 30, 2016, yet the actual occurrence of the extreme fireball explosion took place on April 20, 2010.

The main character in the movie Mike Wahlberg played Mike Williams (the actual survivor) who was the Chief Electronics Technician on the oil rig. Some other recurring characters in the movie were played by actors Kurt Russell, Kate Hudson, Dylan O’Brien, and Gina Rodriguez. I watched the movie on the release date and I believe the movie was an overall 6.5/10, just because it wasn’t ‘my type of movie.’

It is considered a drama/thriller, but in my opinion it was most definitely not until the last 40 minutes of the movie. There was so much build up, which made it get pretty boring the first hour of the movie for me. The film itself was an hour and fourty-seven minutes, and it is rated PG-13, hence the sex scene that took place in the very beginning of the film.

If you’re not into sad movies, this is without a doubt something you should not watch. I think of the movie as Titanic without the romance, just less people die and the first half of the movie isn’t exactly engaging. However, if you like movies based off of true stories, and crazy surviving-through-chaos-at-the-last-minute movies then you’d probably like this. What I’m trying to say is that the movie wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t ‘my type of movie’.

You do learn something from watching this film, as I personally had no clue what Deepwater Horizon was until my friend convinced me to see it because Dylan O’Brien was a main actor in this movie. Apparently the real Deepwater Horizon was the United State’s worst oil spill in history, spilling an estimated 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. There were 126 crew members total present during the explosion, eleven of them died, and those actual people are payed tribute at the end of the film.

The actual Mike Williams from the disaster had reportedly spent two years in his house after the explosion, and still suffers from serious PTSD, yet now he can go out in public. He claims that he is unable to be in any place without exits, and even helicopter noises can trigger him and bring back trauma. Also, Williams had to bring his psychiatrist with him to view the film in its entirety. Williams willingly risked all the pain and work that was put into his recovery to honor those men who lost their lives.

In actuality, it took twelve hours before the explosion occurred in real life, and they had to sum the buildup and the explosion in less than two hours. I recommend watching the movie, to understand what happened and learn about the event and how things came to be. Overall, the movie was interesting and portrayed actual events from the explosion, and it gives us an eye-opening experience that makes us think about events we take lightly, but others who were involved have that grief stuck with them forever.