Opening Friday, The 33 is a bad movie about a wonderful story of the trapped Chilean miners who survived for 69 days underground. If you can get past the sanitized, cliche-ridden movie-making, you might enjoy this film. I will not see it again, even when it gets to TV.
The 33 (Antonio Banderas, Rodrigo Santoro, Lou Diamond Phillips, Gabriel Byrne, Juliette Binoche, Bob Gunton) – There is a lot to like about The 33, the uplifting story of the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners who were trapped for 69 days 2,300 feet underground in a news story that captivated the world. Then again, there is even more to hate about this movie.
First, don’t be dissuaded by me to see this movie. It pushes all the right buttons. You will cry; you will be amazed by their resilience; and the acting is pretty good, too. You already know the ending so you don’t have to worry that these guys will die.
But this is a bad movie. Director Patricia Riggen really missed her chance to make a wonderful character study and a story of hope and perseverance. Instead, she sold out to schmaltz and cliché, commercialism and TV-like simplicity. What she lacked in meaningful message, she captured in exaggeration.
These 33 guys existed in a 50 square meter room (and some tunnels) for over two months. What a story she could have told. Instead, she put them in a cavernous area, which aided cinematography and storytelling but practically ruined the film. She neither dealt with the stench they must have experienced nor the lack of light they dealt with for the first few weeks. Yes, the men had helmet lights but these would only be capable of lasting 2-3 days each if they had not been rationed. Instead, she chose to have them run these lights almost constantly. Of course, without light, how would we get to see the interplay, the hardships, the arguments, the camaraderie? That would have been a movie-making challenge. Instead, she just sold out.
Meanwhile, up on the surface, we watch the families gather and clamor for their loved ones, fighting … no one. There is some faux tension. The government takes a little while to act. But the Chilean Minister of Mines, played excellently by actor Rodrigo Santoro (Love Actually), works earnestly for the miners’ rescue. Gabriel Byrne not-so-adeptly plays a drilling expert; Bob Gunton (the college dean in Patch Adams, and the warden in Shawshank Redemption) is totally miscast as the Chilean president; and James Brolin makes his 90 seconds on screen forgettable in a small but highly credited role (he must have a great manager because his part didn’t even warrant a cameo). Juliette Binoche, one of France’s premier actresses, primps to the camera as the sister of one of the miners from whom she is estranged. And to cap it off, we even get one of the family members to sing a song, perfectly of course, in the cheesiest scene in the film.
So tell me: With all of the wonderful Latino and Spanish actors and actresses in the world, how do we end up with a WASPish American playing the Chilean president, an Irishman playing the local drilling expert, and a French legend playing a Chilean woman?
At least Antonio Banderas and Lou Diamond Phillips seemed well cast for their roles as two of the senior miners. Banderas plays the unofficial leader of the group, Mario Sepulveda (actually aged 40 at the time; Banderas is 55). And other than his usual over-acting, he is credible in the role, except when he gets banished to the “other room” (which didn’t exist in real life) by the other miners. Phillips, who plays the safety officer, Don Lucho, shows his remorse and takes the blame for the cave-in even though he warned the supervisor of the mine.
It isn’t that The 33 is a horrible movie (like the recent Rock The Kasbah). It was an opportunity lost.