How does Norway have the highest GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of any developed nation, currently USD 99,557 in comparison with USD 55,245 for Sweden and USD 52,219 for Canada? Oil! Figures put out by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate state the country produced on average 1.931 million barrels of oil, natural gas liquids and condensate per day in February 2014. Of course, you can’t find a handy statistic on the internet to describe the country’s safety record but Norway’s Statoil isn’t associated with the kind of oil spills and disasters that have affected, say, BP. The real question is that, lacking state of the art technology how was Norway able to exploit the riches in its sea bed. The fictional thriller PIONEER couches an explanation in conspiracy thriller terms.
PIONEER is probably the best deep-sea thriller since James Cameron’s THE ABYSS a quarter century ago. It doesn’t need funny looking aliens and ‘you have to see with better eyes’ to keep us hooked. The nearest point of comparison is perhaps (weirdly) THE RIGHT STUFF. That film was about test pilots who became astronauts, ‘spam in a can’. This one is about divers, guys who go down in pressurized capsules and venture out in insulated suits, having to do skilled work with the weight of the ocean on top of them, unchartered sea floor at their feet.
Norwegian oil production took off in 1971 but PIONEER, co-written and directed by Erik Skjoldbjærg (INSOMNIA) is set a decade later. Petter (Aksel Hennie) is a diver who is involved in an accident that kills his brother. He becomes convinced that the chemicals used to help deep sea workers breathe may be a health hazard. The complication is that the Norwegians are working with the United States. Mike (Wes Bentley) the token American in the team is pulled from a pressure test (not the Masterchef sort, a real one). This strikes Petter as really suspicious. Ferris (Stephen Lang), the head of an oil exploration firm, is much more unscrupulous.
PIONEER begins and ends under water. It is mostly set on dry land and concerns the attempts to get a sample of the gas analysed. Petter finds himself unsurprisingly short of friends and only his relative celebrity status as a deep sea diver – the Norwegian equivalent of an astronaut – allows him to go down in a diving bell again.
Hennie is best known for playing the lead role in HEADHUNTERS, where his character went from being a high roller to a man on the run – boy, did he get messed up! Petter isn’t such a memorable role for him, but it is good to see a film where the lead is obviously not such a photogenic movie star, though of course in Norway, he might be seen that way, like Anthony Michael Hall may be a sex god in some small communities where THE BREAKFAST CLUB is played on a loop.
PIONEER does not have the twists and turns of a great conspiracy thriller, since there are a limited number of vested interests. It is also very blokey – there are no good roles for women. That said, the final third is particularly good. The film makes a telling point, that even the most liberal of societies is based on corruption and bloodshed.
Reviewed at Soho Screening Room, D’Arblay Street, Thursday 13 March 2014, 18:30
