The Reel Review
It is extremely rare for a disaster movie based on a true story to find that perfect balance of entertaining moviegoers, enraging them over corporate greed and paying proper homage to its victims, but director Peter Berg does just that in this gripping reenactment of the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history – the 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the coast of Louisiana – a tragedy which killed 11 workers and dumped 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, Kate Hudson and Gina Rodriguez lead a stellar cast in this exceptionally realistic, intense assault on the senses that also serves as an indictment of BP oil company. The first half of the movie is loaded with oil industry jargon and detail that will delight those fascinated with the inner workings of offshore oil rigs (and bore/confuse those who aren’t), but when the rig explodes, hearts will be pounding, and by the end of the film, breaking, from one of the best disaster movies in years.