The biggest oil spill in US waters is about to be told on the big screen in Deepwater Horizon, starring Mark Wahlberg (Daddy’s Home), but the big question for us is whether or not will do the disaster the justice it deserves. The trailer (below) looks like it’s going to be an out-and-out survival/disaster flick with the guys stuck on the huge oil rig taking centre stage in the film, but with limited reference to the resulting huge-scale environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, it looks like it’s shaping up to only tell part of the story.
The oil rig, Deepwater Horizon, exploded on the 20th April 2010, causing a massive offshore oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, leaking hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil. Both Transocean, which ran the rig, and BP, for which the oil was drilled, went on to be fined significantly by the US government for damaged caused by the spill. The problem for the film will come if it fails to tackle this head on, which is the general direction the trailer appears to be sending the film.
Release date
The disaster flick has a US and UK release date of Thursday the 29th September 2016, more than six years after the oil spill itself. It’ll premier at the Toronto International Film Festival in September ahead of its full release, so we should know a little more about what to expect after it screens.
In the UK, the film will be out on the same weekend as Miss Peregrine’s School For Peculiar Children.
Story
Mike Williams (Wahlberg) works on the Deepwater Horizon, leaving his wife and young daughter behind for long spells while he helps Transocean and BP dig the oil. When it all goes terribly wrong one day and the drill has a massive blowout, it’s a simple case of survival for Mike and the rest of the crew as they struggle to get off the platform alive before it sinks into the sea.
Cast
Along with Mark Wahlberg as rig technician Mike, the cast for Deepwater Horizon, includes Kurt Russell (Guardians Of The Galaxy 2) as Mike’s manager at the facility and Kate Hudson (Kung Fu Panda 3) as his wife. John Malkovich (Transformers: Dark Of The Moon) is also in the mix, along with Gina Rodriguez (Jane The Virgin), Dylan O’Brien (The Internship) and Ethan Suplee (My Name Is Earl).
Production
Peter Berg (producer of Hell Or High Water) has directed the film from a screenplay written by Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand. Summit Entertainment and Participant Media are presenting the film with Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Mark Vahradian and David Womark down as producers.
First impressions
We’re just not convinced there’s the right balance to Deepwater Horizon in terms of its coverage of the disaster. While the efforts of the workers on the rig to save their lives and get off what had become a collapsing inferno of flaming oil is admirable under the circumstances, it seems to distract and detract from the real story of huge quantities of deep sea oil polluting the Gulf Of Mexico on a massive scale, the efforts of environmentalists to clean up as much of the mess as possible and the incredible amount of time and effort it took legal teams to ensure that BP made amends for the disaster. We’re hoping the full film release at least attempts to cover this, but from the look of the trailer below that doesn’t seem to be the case.
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Why could you not just give the UK release date instead people having to search when Miss Peregrine’s School For Peculiar Children is released ?