Deep Water Horizon
12/10/16 Filed in: Cinema
We saw Deep water Horizon today, a film that has received favourable reviews. BP don't come out of it very well at all, as we already knew from the media coverage at the time. The tension builds in the film until you're not actually sure exactly what's going to happen, or when, quite an achievement by the director considering it's an incident that received so much coverage.
Mark Wahlberg plays a central role, as the chief electrical technician, and his story links back to what it must have been like for the relatives back at home. This provides a human storyline that would have been replicated in many family homes. Of course, 11 members of the team never came back.
This was a trial drilling prior to setting up a working rig and we see the BP managers eager to get past the trial stage and put the rig to work, to the extent that safety checks were curtailed and fears of a pressure build up were dismissed as a 'glitch' in the measurements. We all know what happened, but the film adds substance to that with some incredible effects as the rig first suffers a blowback and then catches fire. There are some captions to explain some of the technical details but knowing a little bit about how drilling rigs work will add the understanding of what unraveled.
Mark Wahlberg plays a central role, as the chief electrical technician, and his story links back to what it must have been like for the relatives back at home. This provides a human storyline that would have been replicated in many family homes. Of course, 11 members of the team never came back.
This was a trial drilling prior to setting up a working rig and we see the BP managers eager to get past the trial stage and put the rig to work, to the extent that safety checks were curtailed and fears of a pressure build up were dismissed as a 'glitch' in the measurements. We all know what happened, but the film adds substance to that with some incredible effects as the rig first suffers a blowback and then catches fire. There are some captions to explain some of the technical details but knowing a little bit about how drilling rigs work will add the understanding of what unraveled.
You will be persuaded that this is exactly what it was like, a close approximation to our usual vision of hell, and it's quite amazing that more oil workers weren't killed. It was a semi-submersible rig that was kept in position by underwater impellers and a sophisticated control system, none of which amounted to much when all power was lost.
The film only covers the initial disaster and the human cost, the ensuing pollution being the next phase of this horrendous episode. If anybody thinks it would be acceptable to drill in the Arctic after watching this film then they haven't joined up the dots!
In my opinion one not to miss.
The film only covers the initial disaster and the human cost, the ensuing pollution being the next phase of this horrendous episode. If anybody thinks it would be acceptable to drill in the Arctic after watching this film then they haven't joined up the dots!
In my opinion one not to miss.