The 33

For the dramatization of this true story of the titular Chilean miners who were trapped for sixty-nine days two and a half thousand feet under the Atacama

Desert in 2010, The 33 sadly takes a safe, story-by-numbers approach.

The screenplay, adapted from Hector Tobar’s book, whittles down the thirty three faces to a manageable amount and gives those few a familiar narrative. It’s got the Greedy Company Man who won’t listen to Conscience Man’s (supervisor Lou Diamond Phillips) warnings that the mountain is unstable. Among the miners there’s the Family Man Hero (Banderas), the Old One, the Tempestuous One, the Newbie, the One Who Is About To Become A Father, etc. On the surface it was the usual gaggle of Wives And Daughters who cling to the fences and sing songs while Gabriel Byrne’s Expert Engineer and Rodrigo Santoro’s Government Man With Heart do what they can to reach the trapped miners.

While the 12A rating hints at how safe The 33 is – what, not one cuss word? - it is quite brave in casting. Juliette Binoche, playing Grouchy One’s estranged sister, is a bizarre casting decision - odder than even Gabriel Byrne and James Brolin, who belatedly turns up to represent the American aid and is given two lines. Another strange decision is the inability to follow through on the failure of the mining company for not installing escape ladders, which is raised and then forgotten about. The special effects of the mine collapsing aren’t convincing and the dialogue can be very made-for-TV (having a mining engineer explain to the Minister for Mining what Pneumoconiosis is like Zidane explain to Pele what a hat-trick is).

But if there’s one major criticism it’s director Patricia Riggen’s inability to effectively convey the length of time taken to rescue those trapped and the affect two months underground has on the miners – perhaps sticking with the miners throughout with not even a glimpse of the efforts topside would heighten the experience.

But despite all this The 33 can entertain from time to time and there’s a real sense of frustration when near rescues turn to disaster and there’s no denying the relief when things go their way. And Riggen does come up with some nice touches, like the scene of the ‘banquet’ where the miners hallucinate wonderful food brought in on silver platters by loved ones. It’s corny but effective.