The 33: There’s a Rumbling Groan Down Below

A vexing obstacle faces every filmmaker who wishes to transform a harrowing real world event into a Triumphant Story of the Human Spirit. A non-negligible portion of the audience knows the outcome of the story, so how does one create drama? Recent features with non-fictional premises, such as Fruitvale Station and Foxcatcher, have succeeded by utilizing factual tragedies in novel ways. Unfortunately, director Patricia Riggen’s The 33 doesn’t do anything of comparable interest with the saga of the 2010 Copiapó mining accident in northern Chile.

The story seems fertile enough: Following a catastrophic cave-in at the venerable San José copper and gold mine, 33 miners were left trapped 2,300 feet underground. These men survived an unprecedented 69 days in the abyssal depths before ultimately being rescued by a colossal international effort. The film’s cast is appropriately star-studded: Antonio Banderas, Juliette Binoche, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Gabriel Byrne are just the most famous faces. Naturally, there are foreboding omens of the imminent collapse early on, which are of course dismissed by the mine’s management. Roughly a dozen of the miners are slotted into simple archetypes reflecting a suitably broad cross-section of Chilean society; the remainder of the trapped men are little more than extras.

The film features plenty of stirring monologues in the rescue camp above and the chthonian tomb below, most of which are anodyne exultations Not to Give Up. (Poor Banderas is obliged to deliver The 33‘s most nebulous, ridiculous speeches.) It’s all uplifting in a bland sort of way, without demanding much from the audience or the filmmakers. Riggen’s most stylistically venturesome flourish is a hallucinatory feast in which the miners sup on their favorite dishes served by their doting wives and mothers. Otherwise there’s not much to distinguish The 33 from any other story of unlikely survival.

The 33 opens Friday, November 13 in wide release.