If you had asked me at the beginning of the year if I thought a film about a 2010 oil rig disaster would be one 2016’s best films I would have laughed.

Ten months later and it’s a very different story.

Mark Wahlberg reunites with Lone Survivor director Peter Berg to tell the story of Deepwater Horizon, the now infamous oil rig which on April 20, 2010 suffered a fatal blowout killing 11 crew members and causing the worst environmental disaster in US history.

It could have been easy to focus on the aftermath of the disaster, the oil spilling into the ocean, the wildlife suffering, coastal communities destroyed, after all these are the images that most audiences will remember from news coverage at the time.

Here, however, they barely get a look in.

Inspired by an article in the New York Times, Berg and screenwriters Matthew Sand & Matthew Michael Carnahan, instead choose to focus on the rig itself and those who served aboard her.  It’s a decision that ultimately gives the film its power. Deepwater Horizon isn’t just a film about an environmental disaster, it is a film about human nature.

This is never more in evidence than in the second half of the film which focuses on the initial aftermath of the blowout as the crew scramble to leave the ship. Acts of extreme courage are juxtaposed with those of selfishness born out of fear. The audience are drawn into the heart of the disaster and are left wondering what they would do in the same situation.

While some directors would leave audiences to make up their own minds about who’s at fault, Berg doesn’t shy away from painting BP as the bad guys. The first half of film builds the tension to almost unbearable levels as John Malkovich’s group of company men make decision after decision that push the rig ever closer to disaster in search of the most cost efficient and profitable outcome.

Deepwater Horizon is not an easy film to watch but sometimes those are the best kind of film and the ones that everyone should see.

E