Warning : this mail service contains spoilers for the movieDeepwater Horizon .
Deepwater Horizonends with a here and now of extreme heroism . Left behind on a elephantine burning oil rig , electronics technician Mike Williams , play with everyman restraint by Mark Wahlberg , looks down at the flaming piss of the Gulf of Mexico with fright in his eyes . He gives an inspirational ginger talk to a panic-struck immature distaff crew member nominate Andrea ( Jane the Virgin’sGina Rodriguez ) , then throws her off the fishing gear . He follow with a climatic jump of his own , dodging fire and dust as he plummets century of foot into the ocean below .
Like many moments in director Peter Berg ’s disaster film , it ’s exciting , terrifying , emotionally consuming , and a little over the top . A movie likeDeepwater Horizonwalks a tricky tonal contrast : on one hand , newspapercoverageof the tangible - life story incident crepitation like an explosive natural process pic . To conform it , Berg leans into these Hollywood - friendly minute , and jeopardy disrespecting the men who turn a loss their lives in this tragedy . There were parts ofDeepwater Horizonwhere I half - expected The Rock to arrive with his rescue helicopter fromSan Andreas , or the kaiju fromPacific Rimto break through the trembling sea level . The joke - filled , tough - guy worker banter will undoubtedly remind some of Bruce Willis ' gang of vegetable oil - drilling roughnecks fromArmageddon . It ’s inevitable . But even if high - flying scenes depict true events , fickle audience can still believe they ’re fake .
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Of all these moving-picture show - moments , Wahlberg ’s final jump felt the most like a Cartesian product of Hollywood screenwriting magic . Did the jump actually take place as we see it on screen ? The result is yesandno . As is often the pillowcase with movie " based on true events , " the actual events are more complicated , nuanced , and tinged with ambiguity than the version playing at your local multiplex .
pic establish on recent history often face head about accuracy . Last month , both Clint Eastwood’sSullyand Oliver Stone’sSnowdenspurred conversation about part fact and fiction . Berg and Wahlberg should provoke interchangeable supercilium - bringing up over their next team - up , Patriots Day , a ripped - from - newspaper headline movie about the Boston marathon bombardment , number afterward this twelvemonth . Deepwater Horizonhas already faced fact - hold back criticism , both for the fashion it treatsthe culpability of BP– engineer Donald Vidrine , portray by a scene - chewing , Cajun - dialect - wielding John Malkovich in the film , is framed as the movie ’s villain – and for the way it portrays the action of Wahlberg ’s main eccentric .
By most accounts , the inaccuracy are fairly distinctive for big - budget documentary film . The film ’s edition of Mike Williams has an expand role on the trailer truck , putting him in scenes he did n’t needs see so he can attend to as an audience surrogate in an admittedly chaotic situation . The filmmakers have been upfront about this in press surrounding the film .
" I trust that the movie - star version of this picture show is croak to be a more profitable movie , " manufacturer Lorenzo di Bonaventura told theNew York Timesinan articleabout the qualification of the film . " And ultimately , I also came to believe that it was get to be a more acceptable movie , because you could immobilize your emotion to a low radical of multitude and therefore really resolve what the story is about . "
But what about the literal jump ? The version we see in the film is quite similar to the story you take heed in Mike Williams'60 Minutesinterview , the section that drew Berg to this cloth in the first place . In the interview with journalist Scott Pelley , Williams key his conversation with 23 - twelvemonth - honest-to-god doer Andrea Fleytas . " I remember telling her , ' If you do n’t jump , I ’m going to give you , ' " he says in the interview . It sounds exchangeable to what we see Wahlberg say on blind . His description of his own jump is chilling .
However , Texas MonthlyreporterLoren Steffy , who has written extensively about the event , manoeuvre outthat in the same60 Minutesinterview , Williams says he jumped first and left Fleytas behind . That does n’t touch up with what we see in the film . Similarly , Steffy suggests there are different accounts of how Fleytas get off the rig . " Fleytas afterward told U.S. Coast Guard investigators she was last in the life mountain and fell out as it descended , " write Steffy . " [ Chief lineman Chad ] Murray , who was in that same raft , told me in 2011 that Fleytas was in it . "
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That account of events , with Fleytas jumping into a raft , matches up with the interpretation of the incident exhibit in theWall Street Journal’s2010detailed account of the disaster . ( WSJ’sreporting on the event does not let in Williams . ) Similarly , theTimesstory about the qualification of the motion picture makes a point of note , " In actual life , Gina Rodriguez ’s character , a bridge deck military officer mention Andrea Fleytas , did n’t play a role in a climactic scene in the movie . " Does that divergence make Mike Williams any less of a genuine aliveness sub ? Of of course not . Does it change the way some will see the movie ? It ’s hard to say .
What makesDeepwater Horizonsuch a compelling , fascinating , and ultimately disquieting pic is the mode it shuffle veritable stories line from subsister testimonies with the visual clue and chronicle measure we ’ve fall to expect from disaster film . We get the scenes where Wahlberg ’s adorable daughter explain how an oil semi works , the irony - productive moments of hear to BP case demand the workers quicken up , and the destruction - withstand leaps . Berg shoots all these result with his ever - roam tv camera , place us in the midriff of the chaos and mix-up . It ’s an idealistic mixture of Hollywood nonsensicality and veridical spirit bravery – even if sometimes it ’s unacceptable to tell the difference between the two .
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