The spirit of Irwin Allen is revived for the 21st century in this terrifically tense and exciting real-life disaster movie, directed by Peter Berg. It comes complete with the time-honoured figures: the action-man tough guy, the grizzled old-timer whose warnings on safety are tragically ignored and the contemptible corporate drone who is doing the aforesaid ignoring to save money.
In 2010, the horrendous Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico became the biggest such eco disaster in history. The explosion cost 11 lives; fire raged and oil gushed out of control for 87 days. Afterwards, there was famously a “special relationship” froideur as the White House was quick to emphasise the culpability of Brits – that is, overall owner BP (formerly British Petroleum) – rather than American firms responsible for management and safety.
I was wondering if there might be an evil cameo here for Ralph Fiennes or Patrick Stewart, but no, the wicked bean counter is played by John Malkovich, who does talk about reporting back to his “bosses in London”. Mark Wahlberg plays good ol’ boy Mike Williams, the chief electronics technician who battled to save his colleagues and wound up having to jump from the equivalent of a high building out of the blazing rig into the boiling seawater; Kurt Russell is Jimmy Harrell, the horrified safety expert who confronts management creep Malkovich. As ever, Wahlberg doesn’t act, he just projects himself, and his naturalness makes a cool counterpoint to Russell’s glowering integrity and Malkovich’s lip-pursing villainy. It’s nail-biting stuff.
