1 hr 52 mins, Netflix

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Netflix’s pedestrian house style is eclipsed by a compelling story of inevitable tragedy.

 “The story had the ingredients: it had Titanic, it had billionaires, it had running out of time.” So former OceanGate engineer Emily Hammermeister sums up the public fascination with the 2023 disappearance of the company’s deep-sea submersible. Four days of round-the-clock coverage ended with the revelation that the sub had imploded in milliseconds, killing all passengers: four wealthy paying customers and OceanGate founder Stockton Rush. Given it so thoroughly captivated global attention, it was inevitable the story would lead to a spate of documentaries, including a recent BBC effort and Netflix’s newly released Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster. Hammermeister is just one of a bevy of OceanGate insiders that the streaming giant has managed to nab for this doco, helping filmmakers tell the morbidly compelling story of how one man’s ego inevitably led to a catastrophic disaster.

Netflix has churned out so many of these fresh-from-the-headlines documentaries that they now have a distinct house style, and it’s fairly pedestrian. Titan features plenty of the typical Netflix touches: alternating front- and side-shots of its interviewees; irritating inclusions of pre-interview minutiae like the clapperboard snap. Though it’s not the worst I’ve seen from Netflix, Titan definitely features their trademark penchant for melodramatic flourishes, including an over-egged score and silly labels for every interviewee like ‘the investigator’ or ‘the whistleblower’ (which gets especially ridiculous when we end up with tags like ‘the reporter’ or ‘the influencer’, as if these are definitive roles in the story). 

But despite the somewhat uninspired documentary craft, there’s no getting away from the fact that this is just an incredibly compelling story. Of course, it’s literally vehicle-crash storytelling, so there was always going to be a certain morbid interest, but the documentary gets to something a little deeper. What it depicts is the unchecked ambition and ego of one man who was determined to be the next great innovator, a ruthless vision that allowed no space for genuine concerns around human safety. Over and over obvious dangers were discovered in the design of the Titan (and its predecessor, Cyclops 2), and every time they were not just ignored by Rush but drew his wrath down upon those who dared to speak up. What emerges is a story akin to a fable  or something almost Shakespearean, as Rush’s death appears to have been essentially inevitable; this is a modern morality tale about allowing arrogance to override good sense. 

There are two key elements that really work in this doco’s favour. One is the quality of the interviewees secured, many of whom worked directly with Rush at OceanGate or are experts in their fields. Though there are probably too many altogether (I don’t know that we really needed the accountant, or the YouTube influencer), the first-hand accounts from inside the company paint a vivid picture of the man and the culture he promoted. Perhaps the most fascinating testimony comes from David Lochridge, former Director of Marine Operations, who blew the whistle to authorities years before the disaster. He speaks movingly about his unheeded safety concerns and provides some of the film’s most shocking evidence, including a secretly recorded conversation when he is confronted by an irate Rush. The expertise of the interviewees also allows the science to be presented in a clear and accessible way; laid bare are the inherent design flaws of the Titan, such as its unstable carbon fibre hull and its inherently deficient acoustic monitoring system. 

The other element that makes this such a compelling character study of Rush is the copious footage of the man himself. So proud was he of his company, his innovation (and it seems, his own intelligence and endeavour) that Rush filmed just about everything OceanGate did. He marketed the hell out of it too, speaking repeatedly to the press about his pioneering ideas. This is yet another damning indictment of his ego being his fatal flaw, as it provides some eerie moments of tragic irony; in one media interview he describes the Titan as being “basically invulnerable” before the reporter wryly responds, “they said that about the Titanic.”

There are some facets of the disaster that are noticeably absent, specifically around the implosion itself, the rescue efforts and the ensuing media frenzy. In particular, there isn’t much examination of the social divide exposed in the public fascination with this story – how much sympathy do we have for rich folk who die doing an unregulated activity most of us could never dream of accessing? But I think Titan can be forgiven for omitting this question because it’s not really part of the tale it’s trying to tell. This is the origins story of a disaster that was feted in the stars thanks to the unbridled ambition of a man whose ego ultimately cost five lives. Middling technical prowess aside, this true story is as dramatic as they come and it makes for an incredibly watchable documentary.