This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The true-life drama "Deepwater Horizon" feels like a missed opportunity, capturing the horrors of the deadly 2010 oil-rig tragedy without exploring the corporate malfeasance behind it.

Director Peter Berg ("Lone Survivor," "Friday Night Lights") chronicles the hours before and after the explosion and fire that destroyed the semi-submersible drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico and started the largest oil spill in U.S. history. He and his writers, Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand, find heroic moments in the actions of the rig's chief technician, Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg), navigator Andrea Fleytas (Gina Rodriguez) and the rig's commander, Jimmy Harrell (Kurt Russell).

Getting there, they employ the "Towering Inferno" model of disaster-movie clichés, with Wahlberg's Williams and Russell's Harrell as the blue-collar guys who see the danger coming and the BP execs (led by a bayou-accented John Malkovich) filling the role of the corner-cutting corporate villains.

Berg mounts the action with energy and a precise eye for industrial details, but the matter of who's responsible for the disaster is given short shrift.

'Deepwater Horizon'

Opens Friday, Sept. 30, at theaters everywhere; rated PG-13 for prolonged intense disaster sequences and related disturbing images; 107 minutes.