Mark Wahlberg’s $121M True-Story Thriller Officially Lands on a New Streaming Home

There aren't many disaster movies where most of the audience already knows exactly what's going to happen, but that didn't stop Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg from making one of the better ones. That's arguably what makes its box office failure so staggering, because this film takes one of the worst industrial disasters in American history and spends most of its runtime making you wish there was some way it could end differently.

That movie is Deepwater Horizon, and the disaster thriller has officially found a new streaming home on Prime Video. The film tells the devastating true story of the 2010 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, which killed 11 workers and led to the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history. The damage caused was catastrophic financially and environmentally for hundreds of miles around. Wahlberg plays an electronics technician who arrives aboard the rig as the crew prepares to finish drilling at the Macondo Prospect. There are red flags everywhere and corners being cut, but pressure to get the delayed project moving wins out. Once the well blows, the movie becomes a fight to get as many people off the burning rig as possible.

Wahlberg (Lone Survivor) leads the cast alongside Kurt Russell (The Hateful Eight) as Jimmy Harrell, Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin) as Andrea Fleytas, Dylan O'Brien (The Maze Runner) as Caleb Holloway, Kate Hudson (Almost Famous) as Felicia Williams, Ethan Suplee (Remember the Titans) as Jason Anderson, and John Malkovich (Con Air) as Donald Vidrine.

How Good Is 'Deepwater Horizon'?

Pretty good. Deepwater Horizon holds an 82% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes, with plenty of praise for the way Berg handles the disaster itself without losing sight of the workers caught in the middle of it. The movie made around $122 million worldwide, but a production budget reportedly north of $100 million meant it wasn't the hit those numbers might suggest.

Collider's review commended both Wahlberg's grounded, stoic performance and Berg's measured, restrained approach to storytelling, describing the horrific scenes of the rig's exploding as "nightmarish", adding that there is "nothing here that will make you feel good or triumphant beyond the understated heroism of the workers who tried to save each other’s lives." It was described as a "total assault on the senses with the entire rig engulfed in flames and debris constantly raining down", and also praised the decision to have Wahlberg tone down his usual flair for the dramatic in his impressive everyman role.

Deepwater Horizon is streaming now on Prime Video.