Movie review: ‘The Big Fix’

The scathing documentary “The Big Fix” investigates questions of corporate negligence and political corruption surrounding last year’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its lingering aftereffects on the Gulf Coast.

Even before the devastating spill off the coast of Louisiana, BP — the British company that operated the Deepwater Horizon — had racked up numerous safety violations, as well as deadly explosions and ruptured pipelines in Texas and Alaska. Filmmakers Josh and Rebecca Tickell, however, have more than one villain in their sights. Branching out from the April 2010 spill, they paint a portrait of a political system so corrupted by the oil and gas industry that it has rendered Louisiana less a state in our union than an “oil colony.”

BP chose not to represent its side of the story — the company declined to be interviewed for the film. Instead, “The Big Fix” presents a compelling array of damning testimony from EPA officials, journalists, scientists and politicians as well as emotional scenes of distraught residents, a number, like Rebecca Tickell, experiencing troubling physical symptoms in the wake of the disaster.

“The Big Fix.” No MPAA rating. Running time: 1 hour, 29 minutes. At AMC Loews Broadway 4, Santa Monica.