On a balmy night on dry land, hell breaks out again on the Deepwater Horizon. Not the oil rig that exploded on April 20, 2010, unleashing an environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, but a partial replica built nearly to scale in an abandoned amusement park.
This time, the holocaust is controlled. Nobody is going to die. Only in the movies.
Closed-circuit monitors keep visitors to the set of Deepwater Horizon watching from a safe distance. On the screens, actors Mark Wahlberg and Kurt Russell struggle to release a lifeboat as fire roars and a hydraulic deck tilts. Three times the confusion is replayed for director Peter Berg to choose the most thrilling take, a climactic moment in this $US150 million ($200 million) production, opening on October 6.
Viewed out of context, the scene looks and sounds like just another disaster flick. That is exactly what the filmmakers don't want Deepwater Horizon to be.
"You remind yourself every day why you're doing it, who you're doing it for," Wahlberg says earlier. "The 11 people who lost their lives and people affected by it."
The Deepwater Horizon was a state-of-the-art offshore oil drilling rig that seven months before drilled the deepest oil well in history, more than 10,000 metres. When it exploded, 126 crew members were on board. Investigators would later blame the disaster mainly on the cost and time-cutting measures of British Petroleum, which was leasing the oil rig, plus negligence by the rig's owner, Transocean.
The well gushed crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico for nearly three months. Currents dragged the disaster to coastal communities. Billions of dollars in penalties and restitution ordered by the courts are still being sorted. Berg's movie doesn't examine the ecological and financial costs. It ends with Deepwater Horizon survivors being rescued, after detailing the circumstances leading to 11 men dying.
Wahlberg sees the same bravery in those crew members that he has portrayed before, among doomed deep sea fishermen in The Perfect Storm, and ambushed US Navy Seals in Lone Survivor.
"We committed to making the movie to communicate that to all the families, that that's our focus," Wahlberg says.
At least one survivor is sceptical. "There's respect and there's truth," says Patrick Morgan, of Mississippi. "And if they're not telling the truth, then I don't think they're showing much respect. You know how Hollywood is – they're just out to make a buck."
Morgan, 47, was an assistant driller on the Deepwater Horizon and evacuated the rig on a stretcher loaded in a lifeboat, his back and neck severely injured. "From the [movie's] trailers I've seen, there's some people being portrayed as heroes and stuff, and they were not. Well, not that they wasn't heroes, but there was bigger heroes that should've been portrayed."
Asked if he meant Wahlberg's casting as chief electronics technician Mike Williams, an adviser to the movie, Morgan simply answered: "Yeah."
Williams became the unofficial face of the crew after a US 60 Minutes interview in 2010, highlighting his daring 25-metre leap to safety from atop the rig. The escape is undeniably cinematic, with trailers for Deepwater Horizon using the stunt version as a visual hook.
"You have to kind of figure out whose point of view do you want to tell the story from," Wahlberg says. "We always thought after seeing the 60 Minutes piece that it was pretty obvious, that it should be Mike."
In addition to Williams' input, producers of Deepwater Horizon took extra steps to assure their respect for the entire crew and their profession. Survivors and victims' families were invited to the set.
During a break in filming, Wahlberg stressed his commitment to portraying the courage and sacrifice of the Deepwater Horizon crew. "[The media] seemed to lose touch – at least some of the media – with the human element of the story," he says. "They were focused on the environmental disaster, which was obviously horrible, but you're talking about 11 people losing their lives, and that's pretty substantial. That should always be the most important aspect of it."
Deepwater Horizon ends with the surviving crew's rescue – the same point at which a 2010 New York Times story ended. The movie is based on that story, Deepwater Horizon's Final Hours, co-written by Pulitzer Prize-winner David Barstow.
"I don't think anyone watching this movie will think it airbrushes a natural catastrophe," says Barstow, a technical adviser to the movie. "There's no question this was a huge environmental catastrophe but in the midst of this is also an incredible human disaster."
Morgan is torn about viewing the film re-enactment of what he lived through. "I don't want to watch it but I also know curiosity will get the better of me and sooner or later I will watch it," he says. Until that time, he remains dubious. "There's a hundred people who know what happened on that rig. Hollywood sure don't know what happened on that rig."
Tampa Bay Times
Deepwater Horizon opens in cinemas on October 6.
0 comments
New User? Sign up