Dramatic rescue in The 33

3 out of 4 stars

Antonio Banderas, like more than a billion others worldwide, stared at the 33 miners who one by one, saw the sun for the first time since spending 69 days trapped in the depths of the earth in a collapsed mine.

“I was watching the television,” he recently told reporters, “and said ‘Somebody’s gonna make a movie out of this.’”

Banderas, who stars in The 33, turned out to be right. Hollywood loves dramatic rescues and what’s better than the one at the San José Gold and Copper Mine in Chile’s Atacama Desert in 2010?

Not many, if any. The 33 is as feel-good as it gets, but it’s more than just how a bunch of countries, including the United States, pooled their resources to provide a happy ending. It’s a story of how a bunch of guys known by few people outside of Chile maintained life in the face of death; civility in the face of chaos; and strength when demise seemed imminent.

Director Patricia Riggen (Girl in Progress) does a good, but not a great, job of capturing the story above and below the surface.

Underground, about seven of the miners are showcased, but none bigger than Banderas, who plays “Super” Mario Sepúlveda, the group’s relentless optimist and de facto leader. He’s complemented by shift supervisor Don Lucho (Lou Diamond Phillips), who’s more of a pessimist as he remains steadfast in protecting his fellow miners. There’s also alcoholic Darío Segovia (Juan Pablo Raba); father-to-be Álex Vegas (Mario Casas); philanderer Yonni Barrios (Oscar Nuñez, of The Office); Mario Gómez (Gustavo Angarita), who is two weeks from retirement; and Carlos Mamani (Tenoch Huerta), a Bolivian who fights for acceptance among his Chilean colleagues.

Meantime, above ground, it’s one of the trapped miner’s family members who steals the show: Juliette Binoche. She plays María Segovia — Dario’s sister — who criticizes the Chilean government, especially inexperienced Minister of Mines Laurence Golborne (Rodrigo Santoro of Xeres fame from 300) and then-President Sebastián Piñera (Bob Gunton), whose decisions are often driven more by politics than the miners’ well-being.

Andre Sougarret (Gabriel Byrne), the chief engineer behind the rescue, and American drilling expert Jeff Hart (James Brolin), come off believable in their small yet vital roles.

The movie is as much a documentary about the dangers of mining, which the film claim kills 12,000 annually, as it is a recap of a story that dominated global headlines. It’s filled with replays of TV news reports of the event and flows freely, which isn’t surprising considering much has been written since the miners made it out alive, including Héctor Tobar’s authorized 2014 book Deep Down Dark that the movie follows closely.

There’s very little not to like about The 33, which begins with an amazing computer-generated imaging enhanced scene of the 121-year-old mine’s collapse and keeps the audience’s attention throughout the two-hour film.

But when Lucho reaches the surface and the movie ends, the audience is left with too many questions. What are the 33 miners up to now? How did their plight change the mining industry, which for years turned its back on workers’ safety?

Instead, all audience is told is the miners were never compensated and the company that owned the mine was cleared of any wrongdoing despite failing to provide adequate emergency ladders, food and first aid supplies.

Like much of what remains of the San José Gold and Copper mine, that answer remains buried, probably forever.