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Movies & TV

Deepwater Horizon

GALA D: Peter Berg. U.S. 107 min. Sep 14, 3 pm, Elgin. Rating: NNN


The first half of Deepwater Horizon is a tense ticking-bomb thriller about the hours leading to the disaster that resulted in the largest oil spill in U.S. waters on April 20, 2010.

And that half’s pretty good, as director Berg (Battleship, Lone Survivor) explores the tensions between the rig’s blue-collar crew (Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, Gina Rodriguez) and their corner-cutting bosses from BP, led by John Malkovich in full Cajun swagger.

But then the well blows and the spectacle starts, and all of Deepwater Horizon’s character development goes out the window so a bunch of actors can run around sweating and bleeding from one spectacular explosion to the next.

Berg clearly wants to show the human cost of the disaster, but he’s also really excited about blowing shit up on a grand scale. It’s a conflict Deepwater Horizon never really reconciles.

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