‘The 33’ is 33 minutes too long

The 33 is a biopic about a mining disaster in Chile in 2010 that trapped 33 miners underground for 69 days. At many hundred feet below the surface, and with little chance they’d all make it to what is basically an underground safe house, it was assumed they were dead.

It took almost two weeks to find the miners and when searchers did they were amazed to find all 33 alive. The disaster and their plight captured the imagination of media worldwide.

The movie spins the story from four points of view. The first is the miners’. Trapped in a small tomb with little hope, they must pull together to survive. Second is how the miners deal and their families deal with international fame and the frustration of how to get them out of the ground.

Third, it paints the families — and their trapped loved ones — as victims of a corrupt company that would have just left the guys in the ground to rot. And last is the focus on government officials and drilling experts that eventually succeeded in bringing the men back.

Considering the plot limitations, the acting is superb and the casting interesting. My complaint? You’d think the producers of a movie about Chile could find an all-Latino cast. Of the main stars, Antonio Banderas and Rodrigo Santoro are Latino. Lou Diamond Phillips is of Scotch-Irish and Filipino descent, Juliette Binoche is French, Gabriel Byrne is Irish and Bob Gunton is an Anglo.

Call me picky, but it was a distraction.

Also what The 33 doesn’t do is truly connect you to the plight of these poor men and their families. To be fair, director Patricia Riggen (Under the Same Moon) and her three screenwriters didn’t have a lot to work with. A bunch of men trapped underground and families camped at the gate of the mine doesn’t offer a lot of variety. It’s also obvious that the individual stories of those involved aren’t that compelling.

Riggen and her crew also try to mine some emotion out of what was an emotional 69 days. They fail. Part of that is because The 33 is 33 minutes too long. By what should have been an emotional and tear-generating climax when the miners come to the surface instead becomes relief that you, too, finally escape the mine.

This story was originally published November 12, 2015 at 4:18 PM with the headline "‘The 33’ is 33 minutes too long."