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By STEPHEN HOLDEN

• Directed by: Margaret Brown

Review Summary

“The Great Invisible,” Margaret Brown’s quietly infuriating documentary film about the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, includes depressing information that many would probably be happier not knowing. Since the catastrophe, which began with an oil rig explosion that killed 11 workers and led to a discharge of millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the company that operated the rig, BP, has cleaned up less than one-third of the spill, according to the film. More than four years later, Congress has yet to pass any safety legislation for the petroleum industry. Of the multibillion-dollar profits made by BP over a recent three-year period, the film says, less than a tenth of 1 percent was spent on safety. After a brief moratorium on offshore drilling, the ban was lifted, and there are now more rigs in the Gulf of Mexico than before the disaster. — Stephen Holden

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