Crise à Deepwater Horizon

The weakest Berg. The first hour is literally an ordeal to watch, I was flipping from side to side in boredom. A very unappealing plot that didn't interest me at all. Once something starts happening there is some decent action, but after 20 minutes it fizzles out again as the pathos sets in and boredom sets in again. No emotion, not very engaging, for me very dysfunctional and cold. Finished with problems. 50% (2016-12-30)

I didn't like this film because the acting was great, even though Kurt Russell was very enjoyable here, but mainly because the whole disaster and tragedy were portrayed so brilliantly. Here, I truly felt like I was on the oil rig, that everything was as it should be. It made the experience all the more powerful, even though you know what's going to happen. (2017-01-30)

Working on an oil rig must be a very rewarding experience. When everything is going smoothly, you twist the cap of the pipeline a few times, pump the crap that is as repugnant to nature activists as a bucket of absinthe is to teetotalers, and you get an outrageous amount of money for it, and in your free time you worry only about how to best refit your million-dollar yacht. And then, when everything unexpectedly goes to hell, Hollywood makes a movie about you and you are the greatest hero since Nicolas Cage in the World Trade Center. Fortunately, contrary to my previous sentences, Berg has made such a sincere, empathetic and, in the end, even emotional epitaph on the fate of the unfortunate few who gave their lives due to sheer corporate bureaucracy and greed that I wouldn't be surprised if all the survivors wanted to have a beer with him every night for the rest of their lives. The plot is full of clichés and John Malkovich's character is exactly the annoying prototype of the irrational person who does everything they can to cause trouble in spite of everyone else, but otherwise it all comes across as authentic, intense and, hand in hand with a minimum of inaccessible shots, painful. And it's good that the clear culprit is neither the weather nor a technical glitch, but a failure of the human factor, and that the involvement of the protagonist's personal life doesn't come across as sentimental, but as the only 100% compelling way to realise what, above all, a person can lose when doing a dangerous job. Peter Berg has gone from a director of dull action stuff to a respected maker of real action flicks, and that's a good thing... 75% (2016-12-26)

A catastrophic inferno that looks great. Peter Berg combined sweet sweeping camerawork and breathtaking explosions with a dignified memorial to the worker or his superiors who got killed or maimed for money, money, money. Criticism of contemporary corporate thinking isn’t really the crux of this movie, but, as we find out in the end, Malkovich is just the type of slippery bastard who is guilty on all counts, but who get away Scott-free. Carnahan’s targeted screenplay that concentrates on facts, Berg gives us the occasional visual gem: for instance, the shot of the American flag with the burning oil rig in the background, or the shot of Kate Hudson’s butt in panties (just hugging daddy Kurt), but the finale is a homage to all experts. Engineers, maintenance men, foremen, bosses who got their job on the basis of their experience and not from sitting on their asses. A very good job. I’m content. (2016-10-06)

A conflicting mix of two completely incompatible approaches, coldly procedural movie with a Greengrass patina and biased "trade unionist" black and white in terms of characters. There are only two types of characters: hard-working good guys/heads of families, the only dirt on their character is grease (but it must be acknowledged that the Wahlberg / Russell duo manages this mode with honor) and viciously villainous white-collar management, which knows nothing and doesn't understand anything, casting menacing glances, counting every penny and making money from working rabble. Thanks to this polarization, it finds easy, unrealistic "who is to blame" solutions, which shamefully dulls the procedural line, which is otherwise presented excellently and credibly in itself, and is the film's strongest point. The final disaster (not catastrophic) third is appropriately impressive and properly explosive, but so frantically edited, when one shot follows the other even before the first ended, that this lack of clarity (probably intentional) almost make the viewer dull. On the whole, rather disappointing, from such a major event as the disaster at Deepwater. It would definitely have been possible to make more out of it than just a just a decent movie covering at the same time two different genres. (2017-01-04)