Deepwater Horizon 2016
I was interested in this movie, but didn’t see it at the theaters when it came out. I wound up buying it on Ultra HD over Black Friday and am glad I waited so long to watch since I could enjoy it on my bigger TV and much improved sound system. It is a good movie about the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drill rig that killed eleven people (remarkably 10 times that many survived) before sinking and causing the biggest oil spill ever. The movie focuses on a few of the key players including a couple of BP engineers who are willing to forego precautions to finish drilling the well. The cast is very good and everything seems pretty realistic plus there are some great special effects. They don’t shy away too much from some technical jargon, which ultimately is fine since all that ultimately matters is the whole thing blows up. Knowing this, the whole movie is a buildup to that and works better than it seems like it should. There is some human interest from the family of the main character played by Mark Wahlburg, plus the portrayal of safety shortcuts, plus some remarkable bravery in responding to the incident. It isn’t a great movie, but it is certainly fun to watch and experience. Some of the dark lighting and shaky cam seem overdone and keep you from seeing exactly what is going on (and negate the resolution of the 4K disk), but is maybe to be expected.
Written: 20 Jul 2019
Owned on: UHD, Blu-ray, Digital