Like so many films of its ilk, Patricia Riggen’s lazily named The 33—a rote dramatization of the Chilean mining accident of 2010—glosses over the most interesting aspects of its story in favor of sweeping sentiment and an easy message that boils down to, simply, “Never lose hope.” This is a movie with so little imagination that, despite its true-story origins, every character is reduced to a familiar archetype; a movie set in Chile in which everybody speaks English, because subtitles might limit its box office take; a movie that casts Bob Gunton, Gabriel Byrne and Juliette Binoche as Chileans, a feat that isn’t even offensive due to its sheer Charlton-Heston-in-Touch–of–Evil risibility. But the film isn’t even bad enough to warrant shelling out 12 dollars for a few yuks—it’s just painfully dull.
The film alternates between the titular group of 33 miners, stuck deep in the San José gold and copper mine for two months after a collapse, and the aboveground rescue mission taking place at the same time. Of the trapped workers, Mario Sepúlveda (played by Antonio Banderas) emerges as the leader, the one in charge of rationing food, organizing plans to escape and delivering inspirational speeches whenever someone even thinks of giving up. Lou Diamond Phillips plays the foreman, who has Mario’s back most of the time and helps to keep everyone calm. Only a small handful of the rest of the men are named, and each embodies a single trait. One, a Bolivian, is an outsider; one is an alcoholic; one is a new father wishing that he’d quit and found a safer job.
The drama that grows between these men mostly consists of shouting matches over the best plan of action or who really deserves to be in charge and tender male-bonding moments that reinforce the group’s heroic perseverance. Too bad that, despite updating us frequently as to how much time has passed, screenwriters Mikko Alanne, Craig Borten and Michael Thomas completely fail to burrow into the psychology of any of the characters. The conflict all feels manufactured and familiar when they could have drawn a more realistic portrayal of desperation, starvation and despair.
Meanwhile, 700 meters above them, the Minister of Mining, Laurence Golborne (Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro), oversees the rescue operation and keeps a growing crowd of family members and press at bay just outside the fences. Binoche plays María Segovia, a sister to one of the miners, who won’t accept any excuses until every man is rescued. Here, too, we find an overly familiar “Yes, no, but wait!” structure as different digging techniques are tested, seem successful at first, ultimately fail and then give way to a brilliant new solution.
Recently, Robert Zemeckis’s The Walk proved that it was possible for a death-defying stunt to make your heart race despite knowing the outcome. In The 33, Riggen manages some real suspense in isolated sequences, especially when the men are taken out one by one in a cramped capsule. But because the viewer already knows how the film will end—with a successful rescue—Riggen can’t create that same suspense on the macro-level, and the cheap melodrama that unfolds in place of real psychological investigation is insufficient. You may as well stay home and watch the news.