美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Deepwater Horizon' Honors The Sacrifice Without Sacrificing The Action

'Deepwater Horizon' Honors The Sacrifice Without Sacrificing The Action

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One of the country's worst environmental disasters is now this season's big disaster movie. "Deepwater Horizon" tells the story of the oil rig that turned into an inferno 2 in 2010 off the coast of Louisiana. NPR critic Bob Mondello says the film tells a story of tragic 3 missteps and personal heroics.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE 4: Mike, who's played by Mark Wahlberg, is Mr. Fix-it (ph) on an oil rig in the Gulf 5. He knows how everything works. We in the audience, though, need to be brought up to speed. So the film starts with a nifty demonstration 6 on his kitchen table.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DEEPWATER HORIZON")

KATE HUDSON: (As Felicia Williams) Honey, show Daddy.

STELLA ALLEN: (As Sydney Williams) I'm not done.

HUDSON: (As Felicia Williams) You did such a good job.

MARK WAHLBERG: (As Mike Williams) It's show time. I can do your props 7.

MONDELLO: Mike's daughter is doing a school report.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DEEPWATER HORIZON")

STELLA: (As Sydney Williams) My dad is Mike. He works on a drilling rig that pumps oil out from underneath 8 the ocean.

WAHLBERG: (As Mike Williams) And we're the explorers.

STELLA: (As Sydney Williams) Like Dora.

WAHLBERG: (As Mike Williams) Like Dora.

STELLA: (As Sydney Williams) That oil is a monster, like the mean old dinosaurs 9 all that oil used to be. So for 300 million years, these old dinosaurs have been getting squeezed tighter and tighter...

WAHLBERG: (As Mike Williams) We get it. Just use two tighters.

STELLA: (As Sydney Williams) Then Dad and his friends make a hole in their roof.

MONDELLO: Mike grabs a soda 10 can and punctures 11 it with a metal thingy.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DEEPWATER HORIZON")

WAHLBERG: (As Mike Williams) Yeah.

STELLA: (As Sydney Williams) And these mean old dinosaurs can't believe it - freedom. So they rush to the new hole.

MONDELLO: As she's talking, she pours honey down the straw.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DEEPWATER HORIZON")

STELLA: (As Sydney Williams) They run into this stuff called mud.

MONDELLO: And darned if the honey doesn't block the soda, just like it's supposed to. Mom and Dad are proud.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DEEPWATER HORIZON")

HUDSON: (As Felicia Williams) Yeah.

WAHLBERG: (As Mike Williams) That was amazing. Stay 10 forever, please.

MONDELLO: Then, as they walk away from the kitchen table, the honey gives way, and there's soda on the ceiling. So time to head to that oil rig, Deepwater Horizon, by helicopter because it's 50 miles off shore. Mike and the relief crew are surprised on arrival that some safety tests are being skipped. Mud gets poured, and it starts to act just like the honey in the kitchen.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DEEPWATER HORIZON")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) We're rolling at 1,395, Mr. Jimmy. That's a lot of pressure.

KURT RUSSELL: (As Jimmy Harrell) Enough to cut your car in half.

MONDELLO: Safety guy Kurt Russel keeps ordering more tasks. BP oil exec John Malkovich, who is oily, keeps talking about how far behind schedule they are. And the rest, as they say, is history.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DEEPWATER HORIZON")

WAHLBERG: (As Mike Williams) Hey, Jason, are you seeing this?

MONDELLO: Director Peter Berg spends the first part of the film finding intimate omens 12 for the disaster to come, then delivers catastrophe 13 on an almost biblical scale - glass shattering as it's hit by gale 14 force sludge, dying oil-soaked pelicans 15 falling from the heavens, flames leaping skyward from a drilling rig turned floating volcano.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DEEPWATER HORIZON")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Everybody off deck.

MONDELLO: Technical work is impressive enough that it's almost miraculous 16 that the focus stays on the human beings at the inferno's center.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DEEPWATER HORIZON")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) We've got to go right now.

MONDELLO: Real people - 11 of whom died in what is arguably the globe-scarring ecological 17 disaster of our time. So you can't help marveling at the tightrope 18 the filmmakers walk honoring their courage and sacrifice, while making an action flick 19 entertaining enough to justify 20 the more than $100 million it took to make it live on the screen. And live "Deepwater Horizon" does, in 107 minutes of terse 21, tight storytelling, a good 95 of which are white-knuckle tense. I'm Bob Mondello.